Fat Athlete

Something good, something bad, something empowering!

2010-04-16T19:39:00.001-07:00

OK, here's the good: I'm ready to start doing something about my weight and (lack of) activity. Without really concentrating on it, I'm eating more healthful foods (not OCD, though), getting out there, and feeling good about it. It feels good to be doing things without worrying about how many calories I'm burning and to eat dinner without counting every gram. (No, this is not hyperbole; that is how I lost significant weight.) But here's a change: I'm going to keep my weight private. I won't talk about how much I gained back, and I won't talk about future changes in any specific terms.

Bad: Scold me if you must, but I know of many people who have done well on it, and it just feels like the "right" way to re-kickstart myself. It actually goes against a lot of things I've argued about (deprivation being one), but the benefits make sense to me. So... I've started the Eat Stop Eat style of eating. (Google it if you must, but I'm not sure I think anyone needs the actual book - I bought it for the research information, but there's really not much to the method.) Part of what drew me to it is that I believe that it will be good for me to practice abstaining from foods. I really have trained myself to think that I'm "hungry" if I go more than four hours without eating, and that's just garbage. I may have hunger pangs, but I'm certainly not hungry if I'm not going days without food. Way too much of my life revolves around food, so it feels strong to practice ignoring food for a day here and there.

Empowering: I'm going to a concert. By myself. I'm over the "Oh, I'm such a loser that I can't get anyone to go with me," realized that none of my friends have as great taste in music as I do, and am looking forward to meeting some like-minded people. So, yes, I'm doing this alone, and I'm actually looking forward to practicing chatting up strangers. (Not to mention that this band is fantastic and is sure to be a great show.) For someone with some serious social anxieties, this is huge. I'm excited!

Popping In...

2010-03-21T21:09:00.001-07:00

I just registered in the National Blood Marrow Donor Program. Not saying you should, but this led me to post the cute "little" sidebar badge you see somewhere around the middle of the page on the right. If you decide to register, it seems to be free right now, and you could save a life.

Startling realization: If I regain much more weight, I will be disqualified from donating, should a match be found. There's a gotcha I never expected.

Anywho, I just thought I'd pop in with a quick update. I'm getting out nearly every day, whether it's to walk, work in the garden, turn the compost (that's a workout, dernit!) or even socialize with coworkers. (Yes, I'm rebuilding a life.) I still haven't hopped on the bike again, nor have I built up to running or returning to the gym. But, hey, it's good enough that the fog is slowly lifting.

Oh, and I also completed my application to grad school! (Cross your fingers for me!) And I'm getting my finances under control! OK, so neither of those are particularly "athletic", but they are most certainly good signs that I'm facing in the right direction again. So, um, yeah. Facing forward. That counts for something.

Two Down...

2010-02-23T21:59:00.000-08:00

Walked yesterday, walked today. Sounds small, but we got about two feet of snow (some say) over the weekend, so I'm keeping my promise despite some unpleasant circumstances. That should be worth bonus points. So, things are still looking up.

It's a bit odd that, this time last year, I was cranking out the miles running, biking, hiking, whatever, and now I find victory in measly half-hour walks. Whatever, victory is victory.

This might be as good a time as any to talk about what depression looks like for me. I don't know why, but it seems important to get this out there... Maybe some others are suffering like I have for most of my life, not knowing what to call it.

You see, though I've seen therapists off and on over my life, I never accepted the diagnosis of depression. Why? Because I wasn't really "depressed" according to my working definition. I think this is what most people would consider the general description of depression: sad all the time. I mean, that's what the word means, right? I knew about many other symptoms, but they never fit me: suicidal thoughts, can't sleep, no/reduced self-care (such as eating), sense of hopelessness.

When I'm suffering, I'm not sad all the time. I get happy when good things happen, get sad when sad things happen, and kind of don't feel much most of the time. I take care of myself (in a way) too much by eating all I want and otherwise basically being selfish. Never had a truly suicidal thought in my head. Hopelessness? You have to care to feel hopeless, and I don't really care. With all these differences, I've always thought I don't suffer from depression because I'm not "depressed".

To sum up the basic emotional state, which I've previously described as "meh", it's a general feeling of "why bother?" Apathy. Disinterest. General laziness, it always seemed.

It's not that I thought there was a stigma to the term depression, I didn't avoid the diagnosis because I didn't want to be labeled - it just never fit. And then I learned about "atypical depression". The heavens opened, the light clicked on, and I said, "Oh, this is it." The label didn't matter, it was just that I could (finally) see that my symptoms do, indeed, fit the pattern of depression. It's just not what many people (or I) ever envision when we define depression.

Thirty-eight years, suffering on and off for about twenty-two of those years, and I never felt like I had a diagnosis that fit.

I know the diagnosis/label doesn't matter, but somehow it's validating. It's like passing out every time you eat certain foods and then, one day, finding out that you have diabetes. (OK, maybe that's a bad analogy, but you get the idea. Play along.) You have something that makes sense, something specific to treat, and you know how to manage it, or at least you know you'll be able to manage it eventually. It's something to hold on to, something to attack.

In this case, it's somehow easier to fight an enemy with a name.

Shift in Allies and Tactics

2010-02-18T18:52:00.000-08:00

OK, so, I went to my doctor a while ago to talk about antidepressants. My therapist, though not big into pharmaceutical solutions, agreed that it was worth a shot.

I won't go into details, but it was an ugly scene in the doctor's office. Anyone who has read this blog for a while (as if anyone is left) may remember an ugly history with this doctor. In fact, nearly every time I visit him, I later tell friends about the experience, and they invariably suggest that it may be time for a new doctor.

Well, so a couple of months ago I talk to my doctor about medication for my depression. He makes me jump through some hoops (for example, I actually have to say the phrase, "I suffer from depression," verbatim), tearing me down enough that I actually break down in his office, and he finally prescribes... the medication I didn't want. OK, better than nothing, right? For a while I thought he wasn't going to prescribe anything.

So I try it, and I get worse, or rather my emotions become flattened and dull. Despite common misconceptions, people with depression may not be always sad; I'm not. I'm just extremely "meh" most of the time, but still can have highs and lows. This medication flattened everything. To steal someone else's brilliant way of describing the problem: "I'm getting treatment for depression because I want to feel better, not because I want to feel nothing."

A few weeks later I go back to the doc and he denies that the medication could have such an effect and... he ups the dose. At this time I'm so beaten down by my doctor (yes, really, that is how I felt) that I accept this. So now I'm taking twice as much medication that I'm pretty sure is having no positive effects. (At least I do get enough emotion back that I can enjoy my favorite songs again. For a while, I wouldn't feel anything when one of those "pick me up no matter what" songs came on. Seriously. I would say/sing the words, but not feel anything. We're talking about songs that could make me happy in any situation.)

So, finally, I get my act together and see another doctor. While he describes himself and his philosophies, he makes it very clear that, though he's the person with the medical expertise, we'll always discuss various options and make joint decisions. I'm the final decision-maker unless it's blatantly dangerous or just plain "bad medicine".

ZOMG. Seriously?

I can even print something out that I found on the internet and we can discuss it.

Really? I don't have to be embarrassed and apologetic about researching my own condition?

If I want a second opinion, he's not threatened at all and I can just ask.

Hmm... I was actually too intimidated to ask my (previous) doctor about this. I made this appointment "behind his back".

When I told him about my flattened emotions on my current medication, he nodded as if to say, "Yes, that's a problem I've heard before, and it's not even that uncommon." (My old doctor denied flat out that this medication could have this result.)

Seriously, I sat there stunned, feeling like I was finding an escape from an abusive relationship. How did I let myself deal with such a jerk of a doctor for so long?

Yes, this new doctor is now my doctor.

The icing on the cake? When I called my previous doctor to cancel an upcoming appointment and the receptionist wanted to reschedule, I responded, "Actually, I'm going to try a different doctor for a while." Her surprising response, especially because I have always liked his receptionist: "Ok, but if you change your mind, Dr. XXXXX will decide whether or not he'll accept you back."

You know what? That cinches it, doesn't it? Don't worry, I don't think he'll be faced with the threat of my return.

So: A new doctor. New meds. And two prescriptions I hadn't counted on but certainly can't argue with. The first: drink more water. The second: We made an agreement that I would walk for a half hour every day for a week. Starting Monday.

We even shook on it.

My mood is already looking up.

(Image borrowed from Farther Off the Wall.)

My Daily Homework

2010-02-15T22:30:00.000-08:00

No, I'm still not back. Yet. But I do have an assignment for myself: Watch this video every day for the next week. Seriously, what a video.

Human Chain from NikeSportswear on Vimeo.

(via KanYeUniverseCity)

Um... Hi.

2009-12-08T19:22:00.000-08:00

Good news: I'm alive. I'm not starving to death. I'm not running myself into the ground.

Bad news: I'm "meh". I'm eating too much. I'm not running at all.

Unknown news: I've decided to talk with my doctor about antidepressants. I've always said I didn't want to be medicated, but there comes a time when you have to consider that, just as some people need glasses or insulin, perhaps I need something. How many weekends should one try to sleep away before deciding that something needs to change? Answer: This many.

I hope to start checking in more often.

More Interesting than Me (Today, at Least)

2009-10-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

Nothing to say today, but I was perusing my RSS feeds and ran into an old post from Leigh Peele. In it, she links to two other blog posts which articulate everything (and more) that has ever bothered me about The Biggest Loser. They're so good I have to relink them here.

Tom Venuto's Take on the show

The Mohr Team Scolds Jillian
(I'd never heard of the Mohrs, but you can be sure I'll be watching their space after this great piece)

Hey, Two Posts in Two Days. Who'da Thunkit?

2009-10-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

Success one: Logged all my food today.
Success two: Landed at a caloric deficit.
Success three: Hit the gym and the weights.
OMG: Must I always fry my legs upon reentering training?

Overall: It feels good. And I hope I can walk tomorrow.

Sidenote: Yes, commenting on my last post is disabled. I appreciate that some of you have some very good things to say, but I hope you can understand that I just don't want to open up those issues up to discussion. At least not right now. No offense meant, and I thank you for respecting this. (More than that, I thank you for still being around! You don't know how much your support, even in my silence, means to me.)

Tomorrow: Another step forward.

Yay!

Hey. Me. We Need to Talk.

2009-10-18T21:28:00.000-07:00

Where has the time gone?

I'm not going away. I promise.

To prove it, I'm going to share my darkest shame. No, not any of those! I'm talking athleticism/weight/whatever-relevant-to-this-blog shame.

The scale this morning?

201.

Sweet Lords, what am I letting myself do to myself?

Despite the solid upswing of the scale, this hasn't been a reverse without some hesitation. I've made some halfhearted attempts at returning the trend to what it should be. Why the halfhearted? Damned if I know, but that's what it is.

My therapist is somewhat surprised and perplexed. I guess I can't blame her. In some ways, I feel bad for her since it really must feel like I'm just not trying. Well, really, I guess I'm not.

So. Well. And now? Once again, I wonder what my next step should be. It's not going to be a declaration of renewed determination because either I'll do it or I won't. Declarations didn't get me to lose about sixty pounds, and they didn't let me gain ten back. I did.

You wanna stick around for the weird part?

(Ooh, this is difficult... Some of you may wish to stop here.)

We did.

No, not any of you.

You see, my therapist wants me to play with the idea of identifying the two sides of me. Yes, it feels like I'm pretending to have DID (once known as MPD), but she assures me that it's not an invalid step to name the different sides of me.

In fact, I've long theorized (as if I'm the only one) that we all have multiple personalities, but not with the separation and other complications that those with DID suffer. (I know, the idea makes those with DID cringe, but there is a lot to back it up. Another time and place, though.) I've held back from placating my therapist by playing this game, but what do I have to lose?

So.

We did.

Now, who is we? I need names.

I'm going to assume that the me that I want to be is, well, me. So that me will remain Karen.

The more significant name, I believe, is the name of my saboteur. That part of me that demands Snickers for breakfast or Jack in the Box for dinner when there are perfectly good ingredients in the fridge at home. That part of me that wants to stay curled in bed even when the skies are blue and the wheels of the bike are begging to roll. The part of me that has put her foot down since nearing 190 and has been, for now, getting her way. The part of me that I need to work out a compromise with if I'm going to reverse this reversal.

What is her name?

I can describe her. I know that sounds funny, but I have an image of her in my head. She's a child, petulant, pouting, and angry. Well, maybe not angry so much as resentful. Guarded. Untrusting. Afraid. And not willing to look weak. Or stupid. Ever. She sits with her arms crossed and a look on her face that just makes clear that she is not to be messed with. Well, as much as a, what... six to nine year old can do. Most important, no one is going to tell her what to do, when to do it, or whether she's a good person for doing or not doing something. She is that part of me that, when faced with a person telling her to do something she already decided to do, will do the opposite just to prove a point. She's the part of me that demands to be accepted, but refuses to put herself in a position to be rejected. Which means, ironically, that she can never truly be accepted.

Who is she?

What is her name?

I don't think I can just give her one. I've tried, and they've never felt right.

In a way, they've been rejected.

Good Gods, I know I sound like a nut, but this is a step I'm determined to take tonight.

What is her name?

Katrina?

I've always loved that name, secretly wishing my parents had given me that name rather than the banal one they chose. It seems a little odd to give it away to this dark, angry, fearful part of me that I don't want to become. But maybe that makes it more fitting, since the goal is not to eliminate that part of me so much as it's to make this part of me express her needs in more acceptable ways.

On the other hand, it seems fitting since this is the name I once toyed with as the "if you had an evil twin" name. But she's not evil. She's not even misunderstood. She's unheard.

So. Katrina it is.

It's time to begin being heard.

Yes, Well, and Now?

2009-10-01T20:51:00.000-07:00

Hey, look who's still around.

So, what am I doing. (Yeah, that's an interrogatory sentence ending with a period. What of it?)

Well, the good news is that I'm still here. And here. And here. And a few other places. That means that my demon, whoever she is, doesn't have a complete stranglehold. I'm still holding myself accountable, at least on some level. Also, I'm cooking a bit again (i.e., not all of my food comes in a take-out bag anymore). So there's still hope. (Well, actually, there's always hope, is there not?)

Now there's the question of Saturday. The No Hill Hundred.

Hmmm.

One hundred miles? Definitely out. A metric? Possible, but not likely. Thirty-five miles? Should be doable... but will I? Will I, indeed.

I think I shall. It may be just what I need to help me get my head on straight again. Get my priorities straight.

Will I? I think, yes.

Frak Therapy (or not)

2009-09-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

Ah, so what was the plan again? Oh, yes. Start seeing a therapist when I'm doing fantastic on the health/fitness/weight loss/transformation. Then, if/when I hit that hump, the therapist can then know me well enough to help me over it.

Well, guess who's bottomed out right out that hump. Yeah, yeah. In many ways I fell off the wagon months ago. But it took school starting for me to stop running in the wagon's dust, pretending to try to catch up. Now I gave myself permission to sit down by the side of the road and start shoveling Snickers bars down my gullet. (Ooh, don't I get nasty when I want to? "Gullet". Well, yes. That's how I feel right now.)

Now, I can hear some of you firing up your keyboards. Stop the negative talk, don't be so hard on yourself. Your weight isn't the most important thing.

Well: no, no, yes but anyway. (In that order.)

I think the negative talk is fair right now, since being permissive is part of what gets me in that place I don't want to be. (Where the only exercise I get is cleaning up empty Doritos bags from the floor.) So maybe I should be negative, and maybe I should be hard on myself. I know the weight is the least of the issues, but my downward spiral is going well beyond weight. I'm supposed to ride a century in less than two weeks. Ha!

So, anywho...

I saw my therapist yesterday. I hadn't seen her for a while. What was her brilliance? That I need to figure out what's going on with me. (Yeah, yeah, I know. That's how it works.)

What was my brilliance? The fact that I set it up so that I have a therapist right now. This is what I need. She won't exactly kick my butt when I see her, but maybe she'll get me to start kicking my own butt. Maybe this time. This time I'll figure out exactly what it is that causes me to do a flip turn.

That's the goal. And I think it's achievable.

Not Fat Enough. Who Knew?

2009-09-16T21:52:00.001-07:00

So a little discussion about my blog fired up elsewhere in internetland. Turns out that a beautiful, young, overweight woman became inspired to start her own blog about being a fat athlete. Good for her. The more of us, the better.

What bemused (and amused) me, however, was that she sorta dissed me for not being fat enough to be a fat athlete.

Knock me over with a twinkie.

Not "athlete" enough, maybe. Not friggin' "blogger" enough (lately), I can get behind. Not even anti-weight-loss enough, sure. But not fat enough? Hm.

Well, you know, I knew the time would come when, perhaps, I would face the confusion the infamous Fat Cyclist faces. He is in no way fat. Now. Back when? Yeah, he used to be fat. But things change. Must he really shed the nickname "Fatty"? Would I have to one day change the name of my blog?

But there was no way that I thought I'd face that sort of... what? scorn? confusion? befuddlement? "you're not a member of our fat club anymore"?... Anyway, there's no way I thought I'd face that when I'm still around sixty pounds overweight.

I mean, I guess I'm not complaining. I guess. It just feels sort of odd. I mean, I'm still fat. I'm not a size four complaining about my (normal) belly pooch. I'm still medically obese. No, I'm not morbidly obese, but I used to be. And now, already, I don't count for some people because I'm not fat enough. And, while I'm happily looking forward to the day that I can't even call myself overeight, I'm somewhat perplexed at the feelings that arise when some say that I'm not overweight enough. What an interesting place to be.

How bizarre.

Priorities: Two Points

2009-09-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

Should I insert the obligatory, "Sorry I haven't posted for a while?" Maybe? Maybe not? Well, you choose. Pretend it's there if you want it, pretend it's not there if you don't.

To be honest, my priorities are straight(ish) right now. I'm far from perfect, but I'm not eating gallons of ice cream for breakfast. I'm gaining a few ounces back, and my exercise isn't fabulous, but it's where I need to be for at least a few more weeks. If you're a teacher, you surely understand that the first month or so of a new year can be the most time-consuming. Add the fact that our principal is suddenly adding even more testing into our overworked schedules, and you get even less time. Add the fact that I'm starting one or two (haven't decided whether to drop one) two-year professional development programs, and my time whittles away even more.

So, am I beating myself up for not being particularly athletic right now? Heck no. Even "real" athletes have off-seasons, so that's where I am right now. I'm still in my events, and I'm still training (albeit lightly), so I can't be anything but proud. So there.

So, that's one issue of priorities dealt with. Now for the next: Have you made giving back to the athletic community a priority yet?

I read somewhere about a woman who makes a point of volunteering for at least one event per year. She moves from the competition to support. I don't know about you, but that really clicked for me. Thanks to her, I spent early Sunday morning volunteering for a local race. At the first station, I directed human traffic (10k and half-marathon runners go this way; 5k runners go that). At the second station, I played traffic cop and stopped motorized traffic so that the runners didn't have to slow down.

Was it as fun as running? Surely not. (But it was fun cheering on the runners and admiring their spirit head-on.) More importantly, let's face it: Where would your favorite events be without the sacrifice of volunteers?

So, I ask again: Have you given back yet? I'm not judging, but I am passing on the idea: Just once a year, step to the side and give support to your fellow runners/cyclists/athletes. It's a whole different kind of achievement, but it's achievement nonetheless.

Owie, Owie, OWIE!

2009-09-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

OK, there's pain, and then there's PAIN. Today I'm in both.

I started the New Rules of Lifting (for Women) program yesterday. Yay for me! Did my first barbell squats. Or, at least, I did something which was supposed to be barbell squats. I'm not sure how good my form was. The bar felt unstable (side to side) and my form had to change completely from dumbbell squats as my center of gravity was shifted. But I now get why people really love barbell squats: they really do work so much more of the body. I can't wait until I start dead-lifting in my next session.

So my legs (and a few other spots) are sore from yesterday's workout. Good. That's good pain. I actually sorta like this kind of pain. (No, I'm not being kinky.)

The routine also brings push-ups back on the scene. Now, you know me enough to know that I just didn't throw myself on the ground and start push-ups, right? Nah. I did somewhere around 45° pushups, where I did full push-ups against a window ledge. When I'm ready, I'll progress down to 30° and then floor push-ups. No girlie push-ups for me. At least, that's the goal.

But here's where I messed up. I've heard that the elbows should stay tucked in on push-ups. Where? I dunno. Around. I've always let my arms go out naturally, but now I tried to keep my elbows stay by my sides. Because that's what "they" say.

What the bleep was I thinking?

Halfway through my first set, I decide that this is a mistake, but I finished out that way. Why? I dunno. But I grew a brain before my second set and let my elbows go where they wanted to go.

Too late; the damage was done. My left shoulder hurts. Not the "Ooh, I really worked out my shoulders hard" pain, but the "Oooh, what the bleep did I do to myself?" pain.

Then what do I decide to do this evening? I go on an easy run. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Now I have real pain. The bad pain. The kind of pain where I sometimes have to use my right arm to help my left arm go where I want it to go. I'm taking NSAIDs. I'm icing it. I'm kicking myself. I'm praying I didn't do serious damage.

Although, you really should have seen me try to get my sports bra off after the run. That would have been hilarious to watch. Well, if you didn't care about the fact that my shoulder was hurting so much that I could feel it in my belly. Yeah, that kind of made it slightly less comical.

I appreciate any happy, healthy, healing thoughts you can send in my left shoulder's direction. And I promise I'll stop listening to "them" without doing my own research.

Save the Whales, my Foot!

2009-09-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

Nothing to say today. I owe you all a race report before too long, but not today.

Instead, I'll point you to my shock of the day. Perhaps it's old news, but no matter. If you haven't seen PETA's recent (since terminated) "Save the Whales" campaign (which ironically had nothing to do with saving nor with actual whales and hell if I know what it had to with the ethical treatment of animals), you may wish to look here.

I'll admit that I was stunned. Then flabbergasted. Then really, really confused. Because it made no sense. At all. If you're going to refer to overweight people as "whales" and then profess to want to save them, then shouldn't you be not openly mocking them? Be sure to read the explanation about how PETA agrees that, in an ideal world, people shouldn't feel bad about being overweight, but since they do, PETA is going to make them feel shittier because they need "tough love" in order to, um... who the hell knows. PETA sure didn't.

In their honor, I'm going to have a nice, juicy steak.

Our Classroom Objectives are... Oh, Wait

2009-09-01T05:11:00.000-07:00

Long time, no post. This probably will continue a bit as I focus on the first few weeks of school. These take a great deal of attention as I realize that what I had planned for a certain day should be replaced or adjusted or whatever, and as I focus on getting to know about two hundred new or new-to-me students. Yes. About two hundred.

As I focus so much on tweaking curriculum and building student relationships, I'm not going to have that much time to focus on food or exercise or, even, blogging. Does this mean that anything is changing or ending? Nope. It just means I won't be tracking heavily. I have slipped on the daily exercise a bit, but I do plan on picking that up no later than Thursday.

Saturday's 5k: I did well, but my time is a matter of debate. I'll explain more later. The bottom line, though, is that I did set a new PR. The question is: What, exactly, is that new PR? Stay tuned to find out.

Wait, don't. It might be a while. Instead, check back often.

The Hidden Danger of Exercising with Earphones

2009-08-25T19:06:00.001-07:00

Yes, it's true; I exercise with earphones. When biking or running, for the record, I use earphones which don't block external sounds, so I'm not living as dangerously as some others might with earbuds.

So, yes, on the bike I'm taking risks by not hearing as well as I could otherwise. And, yes, when running I'm taking risks by not hearing as well as I might otherwise. I've accepted those risks, and I try to be alert to my surroundings.

Little did I know that the true danger lay elsewhere.

You see, I also wear headphones when I swim. I thought I was safe. I mean, many swimmers wear ear plugs to keep water out of their ears. They can't hear much either, right? It's not like a car would come barreling through my swim lane, right? Whatever urgent information while swimming could wait until I hit the wall, right? So, I thought, I could tune out my surroundings at little risk.

Little did I know that the true danger lay within.

I don't always listen to music. I frequently listen to audiobooks or podcasts. I am particularly fond of NPR podcasts like This American Life. Yesterday, as I had done many times before, I listened an episode of that very show. One of the stories was read by essayist David Sedaris.

If you haven't read (or heard) anything by David Sedaris, I entreat you to delay no longer: Rush out and buy a book or, better yet, buy an audiobook read by David Sedaris himself. He will make you laugh. He will make you cry. He will make you do both at the same time.

And this, my dear friends, is where my near-fatal mistake lay.

For, really, how can one every be trained well enough to counter a laughing fit in the middle of the pool?

One can't.

There I was, mid-length, laughing like a maniac. Not only did I have quickly cease swimming to make sure to get my head above water, lest I drown in four feet of water, but I then had to do my best to ensure that my erratic behavior didn't alarm any fellow swimmers. They, surely, are not used to finding themselves in the pool with a deliriously hysterical woman.

Despite the fact that, at this time, we all had the luxury of our own lane, I do believe that they each quietly inched to one side of their lanes, attempting to place as much water as possible between them and me, and hoping desperately that my madness was not somehow contagious.

They could not understand.

But now, at least, you understand. You know where the hidden danger lies.

Swim safe, and choose your podcasts with care.

Photo credit: _Morrissey_, Creative Commons usage

Follow the Yellow Brick Road...

2009-08-24T18:26:00.000-07:00

All right. I feel like if I don't post, people are going to wonder if I've curled up into a ball of self-loathing. For the record: I haven't, and I don't plan to. I have run for the past few days (including today), I biked yesterday, and I'm about to go to the gym for a swim.

OK, you want real honesty? I may have realized another "trigger" for my little "relapse" last week. Ssshhhhh.... It's a secret. I'll let you in on it if you promise not to tell anyone.

You ready? OK, here goes. One of the things my therapist and I discussed right beforehand: Putting myself out there into the world of dating or at least meeting people. We discussed a dating site possibility, and maybe even getting it together enough to go to a meetup.com event. I agreed that I would take a picture of myself with my cute new haircut, in one of my cute new tops, and post a picture online and see what happens.

Do you hear the panic in my typing?

Part of me is ready. It is, really. I look in the mirror, like what I see, and think, "Why not? What could it hurt? It could even be fun."

The other part screams, "What the hell are you thinking?!? This is rejection on a huge scale, lady! It's not just one guy rejecting you at a time, it's the whole friggin' internet world! We're not ready for that!"

And then both parts agree that a chocolate cake from Jack in the Box sounds delicious.

But that's not productive. Even if it does distract both sides of the internet dating battle, it's not productive. I get that. Well, I'm getting that. The past few days have been good. Not perfect, but good.

More importantly, I've had some time to refocus on what's really important. I've said it before that exercise/fitness is my highest priority. I mean, come on, the blog is called "Fat Athlete" not "Fat Dieter", right? Right.

So, that's what I'll focus on. If I feel like I need to eat a little heavier, I'll listen and not berate myself for eating a little more than normal. But the exercise will be my top priority. Six days out of seven I will do something more than walking the dog around a few blocks. It can be a run, a swim, a ride, a hike, a weight training session, a jaunt on the elliptical gathering dust in the spare room, or anything else I think of. I've got plenty of options.

And, yeah, when I exercise, I tend to eat better. Not always, but most of the time. I feel better, so I eat better. They just seem to go hand in hand.

So, yeah. One more confession and a plan. Good enough for today.

(Oh, and, no. In case you're left wondering, my title doesn't have anything to do with today's post. Well, perhaps it does have a bit to do with persistence to a set goal even when one doesn't know what obstacles and detours life may throw. So, yeah. That could be a connection. If you really need one.)

A Step Forward

2009-08-22T20:38:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll admit it: I'm a bit nervous. I thought about yesterday's post and it's somewhat reminiscent of the posts I made leading up to my departure years ago. Not identical, but reminiscent. A key difference is that I'm much more resolved right now, whereas I was a bit more whiny back then.

So, I started to look at some differences between then and now. First, I've hit a lower weight, so I've technically broken through my previous wall (technically). Next, I have more upcoming events than I did back then, so I need to keep up the training. Most importantly, perhaps, I have a therapist. I did that on purpose, remember? I knew that I had always hit a wall in the past, so I "hired"(?) a therapist quite some time ago so she could help me break through that wall.

So, really, no excuses. Staying at this weight: OK. Losing more weight: Great. Gaining weight back: Not an option.

The same for sport/exercise. Staying at this level: OK. Relaxing just a teeny bit: Fine. Picking it up: Superb. Returning to couch-potatohood: Not an option.

For today, I've been eating OK. Not fantastic, no deficit, but also no junk/fast food to kick me way over maintenance.

I also went for a hard run. They say that the hardest part of a workout is lacing up the shoes. Definitely true. Once I got out there, I wondered why I hadn't been running the past few days. It's a blast! No, it's not easy by any means, but it feels good. Why deprive myself of the joys of sport?

Tomorrow: A bike ride. Maybe even a swim in the evening.

(For those paying extraordinary attention (even a bit too much attention, perhaps, but I won't judge): Since I skipped my weight training session on Thursday, I've decided that that will be my deload week leading up to beginning The New Rules of Lifting. So I'll start that soon.)

So, is everything roses? Not yet. But at least I can still see the flowers for the thorns.

Another Look at Motivation... and Something Else

2009-08-21T20:29:00.000-07:00

Well, wasn't that fast? Just a few days ago I declare that I am done futzing around with my weight loss and am renewed in maintaining a daily deficit of 500-1000 calories.

And that lasted... Should I count in hours or minutes?

Either way, I crashed and burned. Quickly.

Why?

Likely suspects: PMS, oppressively hot weather, general burn-out, stress (the new school year starts very soon), a certain part of my psyche saying "enough" and rebelling against the healthful lifestyle...

I'll tell you which one I believe is guilty, but, in any case, I've been hitting fast food and junk food.

Worse yet: I haven't been exercising.

It's an ugly cycle. I eat Jack in the Box and feel stuffed so I don't want to exercise. I didn't exercise, so I'm missing the endorphins so I eat bad food looking for whatever that provides. Continue in circular fashion for... 48 hours now?

I'm not sure I ever mentioned this before, but I smoked marijuana for a short period about a decade ago. (Bear with me; I'm going somewhere with this.) For the most part, it was part of my "unwind" routine after work. I would smoke out the way some people would have a drink at the end of the day.

Now, you might think that pot would have made me gain weight, but I lost weight. (I was already losing weight, so the MJ just didn't disrupt the process.) But what about munchies? I never got them. I have a pet hypothesis that, just as stimulants have the opposite effect in children with ADHD (they calm them down), pot had the opposite effect in me.

The bigger issue is that, as was discovered years ago, eating "mass quantities" of food triggers a particular neurochemical reaction in the brain. This reaction is, believe it or not, similar to the effects of marijuana.

When I learned this, I was not surprised. You see, when I stopped smoking out every night... I started binging. I continued to do that for over a month. It was the only time in my life in which I binged. I didn't know why at the time, but after I learned about the connection between consuming a lot of food and THC (the active chemical in marijuana), I realized that I was basically seeking out that same semi-euphoric relaxation.

Does it make sense that now, as I'm beginning to feel some anxiety about the beginning of a new school year, I'm seeking that same relaxation? Bottom line: I think I'm self-medicating.

Funny thing: When I relayed all this to my therapist recently, she asked whether I had ever looked into medical marijuana. I quickly chuckled it off because I was afraid it would affect my motivation and my exercise.

On the other hand, if my current behavior is affecting my motivation and my exercise... would it be any worse? Would it actually be better?

In any case, I need to get a grip. I am absolutely not willing to undo my hard work. If I stay at 190-195, I can begrudgingly accept that. (Though I would still prefer to lose more weight. It's hard to bike this extra weight up the hills.) But I am completely resolute that I will not go above 200.

I will not. Period.

"Help Me Lose Weight."

2009-08-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

We had just finished lunch when that sentence was thrown at me by a friend. Wow, I take that as a huge compliment. At the same time, I was flummoxed. I think I was looking at him as if I were waiting for a punchline, so he followed up with, "I want to lose weight. Tell me what to do."

Um, OK. Still flummoxed. First, there was the whole issue that I didn't think that he needs to lose weight, but I figured there was no point in saying that. I hated it when people would say it to me when I had already made it clear that I was "ok" with wanting to lose some weight. He didn't ask me whether he should lose weight; he wanted to know how to lose weight.

I had to ponder. After what seems like thousands of internet discussions and even a couple of long-winded posts on how to lose weight here, I now needed to boil it down to the absolute essence of weight loss. The magic keys to the kingdom, as it were.

I pondered.

I then responded, and many readers will be completely unsurprised by this response.

I have to count calories.

I can exercise or not exercise, but I have to count calories. I prefer to exercise because it allows me to eat more.

I can eat crap or I can eat healthfully, but it comes down to calories. I prefer to eat healthful foods because it makes me feel better and more satisfied. Within reason, of course. If I ate 90% carbs and fat, I really wouldn't do well, but you know what I mean.

It all comes down to counting calories.

He looked a little disappointed. There was no magic bullet. It was nothing he hadn't tried before. It was a hard job that he'd have to work at. Ultimately, it was an answer he already knew.

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the crux of the matter: Motivation. That, he knew without asking, was all on him. Only one person can motivate you, and that's you.

I guess I'm not much of a sage, but at least I say it as I see it. That's something.

Ravenous

2009-08-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

Ran this morning. Worked at the school a bit, unpacking for my new room. Hit the weight room hard this evening and finished up with a medium-length swim. Came home and made some grilled boneless chicken thighs with buttered toast and veggies. I must have tasted it at some point because I know it was all fantastic. But I'm not sure I chewed very much, instead choosing to inhale deeply in a near-continuous fashion. Very unladylike, I must admit. I was absolutely ravenous.

So, just a warning: After a hard day, don't dare get between me and my dinner, particularly if it involves chicken thighs. At least not if you value your fingers.

I do feel much better now.

Seven Day Challenge Conclusion

2009-08-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

Side note: I first typed the title in as "Seven Dan Challenge". Boy would that have taken this blog in a completely different direction! OK, sorry, back to family friendly blogging.

How did you do? Did you make it seven days? I did, but only because I cheated. (For those who don't know, my challenge was to get out of bed nearly immediately after waking naturally.) So, how did I cheat? I started using my alarm clock. It was the only way I could do it. Otherwise I'd just keep going back to sleep and waste precious daylight. Some habits, like chewing one's nails, are simply so ingrained that it takes a very concerted effort... more effort than I could gather when half asleep.

So, did I meet the challenge? Well, technically perhaps. But not really. Sadly, school duties are beginning, so I can't reset my challenge. I'll consider redoing it next break.

I hope you all had better success than me.

A Jolt to Reality... and a Moment of Pure Joy

2009-08-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

Let's get this out first: Yes, I weigh myself twice a day. Shame on me. Only the morning counts (and even that doesn't really count because it only gets calculated into the average weight), but I also step on every night before bed just as a "preview" of the next day.

Last night I hit 195. That's it. Too high. No berating, no anger, no kicking myself. Just a renewed determination. I've been way too lax for way too long. Maybe it was a break I and/or my body needed. But I'm done now. Back to a 500-1000 calorie deficit per day with one "refuel" day per week. Period.

Now, after that jolt back to reality, I have the happy coincidence of having coupons for Lane Bryant (LB), a store which specializes in plus sizes. Well, it's not that happy. I had actually hoped to be shopping somewhere other than Lane Bryant for my back-to-work wardrobe, but the unlikelihood of that became clear quite some time ago. So, whatev. I have a LB credit card, coupons, and closets way too empty for the start of school. Off I go.

I buy some blouses that fit perfectly and one pair of pants that fits a bit tight. (Something to work for, right?) I chuckle a couple of times as I realize, in the fitting room, that I had pulled some tops off the shelf at the wrong (old) size just out of habit. And then I put on the knit tops I had picked out. I am astounded. They are the smallest size LB sells... and they are grotesquely baggy. Yay!

But... What now? I need some knit tops to complete certain outfits and... well, what now?

So I peruse the mall.

Yes, the mall.

You may not understand, but this is huge.

The first "normal people" clothes store (no offense, please; that's just how these things are said in my brain) I walk into doesn't quite have what I'm looking for, so I just cruise around the store and duck back out. No one looks at me funny and I don't have to decide whether or not to actually try on some "normal people" clothes. Good.

The second store has just the style of top I'm looking for. The clerk behind the counter notices my LB bags and asks about the store, whether they have some particular sales and/or good deals. She then slyly mentions that they carry womens' clothing in the back of the store.

Uh, oh... I wonder, Is she trying to tell me something?

I shake that off and remember that I'm carrying a bag of clothes from a plus-size store. Either it was just a natural flow of conversation, or she made a logical conclusion from my bags. No biggie.

After chatting briefly, I dare to take a single "regular person" XL top (which you may know is often different from a plus-size XL size) and ask about trying it on.

I slip into the fitting room and slip into the top. I look in the mirror. Not only does it fit, but I look good! I fit into a shirt at a regular store. And, don't take this as bragging, but it looks damn good on me!

I jump up and down for joy. Literally. I'm in the stall in the fitting room, jumping up and down with glee. I swear to myself that I will not cry, blink away some moisture from my eyes, and go out to pick out some more items.

Today I bought three shirts from the regular section of a regular clothing store. It sounds so small, so menial, but let me tell you: It is not small; it is not menial. It may be just what I needed.

Random Rinky-Dink Review #1: Purple Cauliflower

2009-08-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

This may be old news to some of you, but they now have purple cauliflower. I knew about the orange cauliflower, and the green, but I was particularly excited to see purple at the market today. I don't get enough purple veggies in my diet. I figured I like cauliflower, I like purple potatoes. I even love the color purple. What's not to love with purple cauliflower?

Everything, apparently. The bitterness could not be overcome. Just bleh. I had never met a cauliflower I didn't like. Until now.

I still have half a head to use, so I'll see if it holds up any better to roasting (mmmmmm.... roasted garlic cauliflower...), but I don't have high hopes. Bummer.

Sensationalistic Journalism Needs to be Exorcised (not a typo)

2009-08-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

"Exercise won't make you lose weight," claims the blurb on the cover. The title: "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin". A few paragraphs in, the author provides this quote: "In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless." In the last paragraph, the author himself boldly proclaims, "[B]e warned: fiery spurts of viorous exercise could lead to weight gain."

Deep breaths.

If you haven't already figured it out, I'm talking about an article in the recent issue of Time, sold with the scandalous phrase "The Myth About Exercise" as the cover headline. I don't subscribe, and I'm happy to report that I didn't spend money on this issue (I stole my roommate's issue). The bad news is that this cover certainly did get peoples' attention; chances are that they sold a ton of issues at the newsstands. People all over the internet are talking about the article. The worst news is that the article is, ultimately, garbage.

There are so many problems with this article that I don't know where to start, and I'm certainly not going to have time (or patience) to address it all. Is the science correct? Surely, but that's not where the problems lie. What frustrates me are the implied conclusions of the article and what misconceptions a great deal of the readership will walk away with.

Minor detour: I'm absolutely flummoxed with paragraph two, where the author claims that he has never been overweight (other than a particular two-year exception) but then confesses that he has gut fat that hangs over his belt when he sits. (Huh?)

Moving on. Apparently we need a six-page article to tell us that we need to watch what we eat whether or not we exercise. True, some people do need to be told that; however, the article never really says that in plain language. Where would be the story in that? Instead, it attacks exercise as a tool for weight loss right and left, speckling in a "but exercise is good for you" here and there, and, ultimately, never gives a solution beyond the general recommendation to watch what you eat.

Again, I can't resist reminding you of that parting shot: "[F]iery spurts of viorous exercise could lead to weight gain." Are you kidding me?

Part of the article addresses "compensatory eating", which is a fancy way of saying that we get hungry after exercise and that leads some people to eat more than they burned. Could the author be bothered to mention little details like how one can, if one is paying attention, refuel from a 2,000 calorie ride or hike with a mere 500 calorie meal or even a 300 calorie run with a 100 calorie snack? Might the author mention how a person who would figuratively die on a 1300 calorie per day diet just might be more able to sustain an 1800 calorie per day diet with exercise? (No, not everyone does better this way, but many of us do.)

Possibly the most egregious tidbit follows: "[S]elf-control is like a muscle: it weakens each day after you use it." Um. Funny. A muscle may weaken the day after it is used, but won't it strengthen after that? Nah, let's not mess with a perfectly awful analogy by bringing reality into the picture.

The article mentions that people are simply not designed to easily avoid eating enough calories to make up for those burned in exercise. Funny how it doesn't mention that people are simply not designed to easily avoid eating enough calories to live. Cutting calories goes against what our bodies demand. Period. It doesn't matter whether or not we exercise; the body wants to maintain equilibrium - or, better yet - save some extra fat for a rainy day. No matter what we do, we have to fight our against our body's survival messages if we want to lose weight. Period.

Here's what angers me most about this article: Imagine the couch potato whose heaviest exercise is climbing a flight of stairs when the elevator is broken. He or she picks up the article and gets what out of it? Yep. He thinks to himself, "Well, that settles it. There's no reason to exercise! Pass me the remote control."

Ten, nine, eight..... Deep breath.

Look, you want to hear why people should turn to exercise for weight loss before cutting calories alone? Because exercise can become a lifestyle. It's healthful and has benefits beyond weight change. We all know about the dangers of yo-yo dieting, but no one has ever warned against the dangers of yo-yo exercising. I don't need to explain why, do I?

Bottom line: Why do doctors want us to lose weight? To be healthier. What would they rather have: An active and healthier moderately overweight person or an inactive and unhealthy person at any weight?

Ah, forget what doctors want. What do you want?
.
ADDENDUM: Runner's World has an excellent response to the Time article here. (Though it doesn't have nearly enough facepalm.)

Oops

2009-08-06T22:59:00.001-07:00

I have something interesting to say coming up. I promise. Well, I guess it depends on your definition of "interesting". Mine tends to be a bit broader than some, but I digress.

For now, all I have is a confession: I slept in this morning. It started with a sinister lie. I woke up at 6:03 and decided to pretend that I didn't really wake up. (Huh?!?) Anyway, 6:15 rolled around, then 6:45... then 7:00... then... Well, you get the idea.

I then complained all day long that the day disappeared out from under me. Um, no. I slept an extra three and a half hours away. Clearly I didn't need that extra sleep, or I wouldn't have woken up around six, right? Right.

OK, so it's day number one tomorrow. I will get through seven days. I mean, seriously.

Seven Day Challenge

2009-08-03T21:41:00.001-07:00

Quick: What habit do you want to develop (or break) but feels a little overwhelming to do "forever"? You know it takes a month to develop (or break) a new habit, but even that feels like a little too much. Do you think you can do it for a measly seven days? Sure you can! It's only seven days. A mere week. Get a taste for the cost, feel the benefits, and decide whether you can (or even want to) do it for another seven days (or more). And if not? Well, it was only seven days. You can do anything for seven days, right?

Yes, those of you who read my blog a whopping, um, two days ago know exactly where I'm going with this. And, yes, that speech above is a pep talk for myself at least as much as for any of you. So it's official: I'm going to work on my "getting out of bed" habit.

For seven days I will get out of bed within ten minutes of naturally waking. (And not turn around and lay back down.) The one exception I will make is if I wake for some bizarre reason before 6:00 a.m. (I mean, come on. I'm on vacation, right? No need to go totally insane.) The plan is to also get in the habit of checking my morning resting heart rate before getting out of bed. But that's the most painless part of the whole thing.

My seven days will start Wednesday. Why Wednesday? Why not?

Your seven days can start whenever you want. You like the way I pulled you into this? Slick, eh? C'mon, you know you want to join in (even if you're reading this long in the future). Pick your target and pick your start date. What do you want to change for the next week? Use your treadmill (coughCidtalkcough)? Eat breakfast every day? Try a new veggie every day? Cut off the tv for a week?

I'd love to hear about it in the comments, but feel free to do it secretly if you'd rather. Either way, pick a tough goal and join me. I dare you.

Checking In (and Babbling, Apparently)

2009-08-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Nothing interesting to say. I swam yesterday, I biked and ran today. All this despite a general desire to just go back to bed and sleep. I won't chalk it up to depression (though that's a possibility), and I don't think I should blame it on overtraining. I'm certainly not undereating (judging from the recent slight upward swing of the scale, though my fat monitor assures me that I'm building muscle and losing a tiny bit of fat). I'm preparing a nice juicy steak for dinner tonight on the off chance that I'm slightly low on iron. If the steak doesn't do it, then maybe it's time to get a solid blood workup just to make sure that eight and a half months of dieting down isn't leaving me with an unexpected deficiency.

I'm seriously considering taking a solid month off any targeted weight loss, intentionally eating as close to maintenance as possible. (The only difference from the past few months would be that I'm targeting maintenance calories, not just landing there most of the time.)

On the other hand, I wonder about my sleep. Am I sleeping too little? Not very likely. Too much? Possible. I've never been a morning person. I typically get up only when I have to, or when it's so late in the morning that I'd be embarrassed to be caught in bed. I have no qualms about napping (or, ahem, polyphasic sleep) so, again, a lack of sleep is probably not the problem.

I'm seriously considering making the toughest commitment to a challenge I've ever made. For a week, just a week, I hop out of bed the instant I wake up naturally. Sounds easy, right? Yeah, um, not for me. I wonder what effect this would have. Certainly no negative effects. If I could do it. You just don't know how reluctant I've been - my entire life - to ever climb out of bed. (The only exception to this is the delicious joy of climbing out of a sleeping bag and exiting a tent to inhale crisp mountain air at dawn. That's the only exception.)

Just one week. I wonder if I could do it. Rather, I wonder if I would do it.

Promises Kept; Food Diary Not

2009-07-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

OK, so I became somewhat productive yesterday. Well, somewhat. I needed a new desktop computer, so I ordered a barebones kit. (I had put together a computer from parts somewhere around the days of the 386/486 - you youngsters just need to know that it was the snazziest thing a couple of decades ago - but haven't done much technical since.) It went together fairly well, but took quite some time. So, that kept me busy.

It also gave me an excuse to revert to oldish food habits. Dunno why, but it seemed to be some sort of weird association between geeky stuff and greasy food. Like overworked IT nerds flock to Doritos and Mountain Dew, I turn to Jack in the Box after certain events. Apparently, putting together a computer is one of them. Odd.

Of course, I'm not exactly back on track today, nutritionally, so I'm considering this a two-day free-day. The scale will certainly taunt me for a while, but it won't make me or break me.

On the bright side of things, two promises were kept. First, I promised the dog that we would go on a run this morning in lieu of yesterday's walk. I know (think) she didn't understand what I said, but I did, so I had to keep that promise despite the siren grip of the comforter. No training plan today. I just headed out for a walking warm-up, a solid run, and then a walking/jogging cool-down. It was sort of refreshing to just run for running's sake; I'm going to have to add it in regularly. (And let us not forget that I do have a 5k in a few weeks, so I'd better get my running feet in gear. I insist on setting a new PR in that race.)

The second promise was my weight lifting promise. Two days a week, Monday and Thursday. Who did I promise that to, anyway? Was that just myself? Hmph. Well, all the better, then. So, despite still futzing with some software that doesn't want to install on the new computer, I made it to the gym. I'm at a weird spot where some of the weights/reps randomly drop. Well, not quite randomly; one thing goes up and another goes down. Today, my lat pull-downs went back up after dropping Monday, but my, um... well, nevermind. I guess nothing really went down, but certain lifts I expected to go up (in either reps or weight) didn't go up.

Since I had wasted daylight with the computer, I hit the gym a bit later and at a busier time than normal. While I normally try to avoid eye contact, preferring instead to imagine a gentler version of the mocking scorn I'm "sure" they really have, I let myself notice a few glances today. Now, I'm certainly not anything that would draw most guys' eyes (yet), but I wonder what a couple of them were thinking today. I didn't sense any amusement or negative vibe at my efforts today. If anything, the few guys that looked my way at all (most were, naturally, in their own worlds), well, they seemed to almost have a look of admiration. I don't know if it was because I didn't have a pair of pink dumbbells in my hand, or if it was because my form isn't as bad as I always fear it is, or maybe they were actually somewhat impressed to see how much I'm lifting.

No, strike that last one. I'm really not lifting that heavy (yet). I do lift heavier than many of the women (but not all), and heavier than many of the older men (it's a hospital gym, after all), but I don't think that I'd be raising any eyebrows of admiration.

I'm going to take it a different way. It's not that they're looking at me differently; it's that I'm getting more sure of myself and more comfortable with myself. You know, I like the feeling. In fact, I'm really starting to like lifting again. I mean, really starting to like it. I might even work it into my schedule more. Try to act a little less surprised, will ya?

Meh.

2009-07-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

I know this is no excuse, but I'm just not feeling it today. There are so many options for being productive today. I could go to the school and start organizing my new classroom. I could continue my spring cleaning at home. (Yes, I do know it's Summer. What's your point?) I could probably clean my car.

Regarding more fun and active options... I slept my way past a decent hour to go running (any time after 7:00 and it's just icky hot). I procrastinated my way past a decent hour to go cycling. I could go swimming, but... well... meh.

Maybe I'll take a nice long soak in the tub. That's productive in its own way, right? I mean, relaxation is important. So is reading. I could do both at the same time. That's kinda productive, right?

Yeah, I know. I'm not buying it, either.

I guess I'll just sit here and think about it some more.

Adult Physical Fitness Test - Part II

2009-07-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

In January, I discovered and subsequently took the President's Challenge Adult Fitness Test. (You can read my thoughts about the test back then here.) I had planned to retest quartly, but three months went by and I "missed" the deadline. I then thought about three tests a year, and then May 25th came and went. But there's no way I was going to test fewer than twice a year. Even my procrastination has its limits.

So today I retook it. Well, except for the 1.5 mile run. I estimated that time off of my recent 5k race. So, if anything, my time is a little slow. This policy of estimating rather than going out and running 1.5 miles is not likely to change any time soon, so that metric will still be consistent.

On with the show. Here are my results from January and my results from today. Cue the horns!

OK, so let's look at the results. My running, half sit-ups, and sit-and-reach have all improved. That's good. My push-ups have stayed stagnant. That's a little disappointing, but understandable since I actually haven't been doing any push-ups. (Although I haven't been doing any sit-ups or stretching exercises, either.) I had hoped that the related exercises I'm doing would help my push-ups; apparently that's not the case. I'll have to put push-ups into my next strength routine.

I'm somewhat bemused that I get the same response of "Obesity, Very High Risk of Disease" for my body composition for the two BMIs and waist circumferences. You'd think that a difference of 38 pounds and five inches would get a somewhat different response. I mean, I know it's a computer and it's only spitting out data for given input, and it's not like it knows that that was me back then, but you'd think it would have more options for what to spit out at people at various levels. (And, yeah, I know BMI is garbage, but it just would be nice. That's all.)

OK, let's put the weight and belly measurement aside and look back at what matters: fitness.

I've gone from an overall score of the 23rd percentile to the 40th percentile. So, in that hypothetical room of 100 people, I've jumped over 17 people. Hey. That's not too shabby. I've also gone from above average in one area to above average in two areas. That's not too shabby, either.

You know, I think I may feel a little something of the opposite of disappointment in these results. Obama and his six-pack would be proud. You know, if he had time to care.

Swimming Like a Fish. A Slow Fish, Perhaps, but a Fish Nonetheless

2009-07-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not know, the crawl and I have been reluctant friends. I grew up on the breaststroke. Wait, even better: the German breaststroke where your face never touches the water (as you see in the wikipedia shot below). I mean, it was good and all. It got me from one side of the pool to the other, but it was certainly never going to be anything I'd do much for exercise.

As a child, I would wail if any water touched my face without me planning on it. Even then, I would tightly hold my nose before getting my face wet. It wasn't until I met a very patient instructor in sixth grade camp before I learned how to blow bubbles and bob under the water while clutching for dear life at the edge of the pool. But that was it. The heads-up breaststroke and bobbing at the edge of the pool. (Yes, I did grow up in San Diego. Why do you ask?)

A few years ago I decided I wanted to learn the crawl. I bought what I'm sure is a good book... designed for improving proficient swimmers. I taught myself what I thought was the crawl. After being told that I looked like I was being electrocuted, I bought a book and DVD on the Total Immersion method and started reteaching myself the crawl from the bottom up. It's been an on-and-off journey (as has nearly everything), but I'm starting to really "get" the crawl.

Yesterday, I crawled 500 yards without a break. Twice. Add in warm-up, cool-down, and interval laps, and it was a swimmer's mile, despite planning on less.

Did you catch that?

No, not the 500 yards nonstop.

But, yes, that was a first-time event.

The other thing.

Yes, intervals!

Ye Gods!

Even better: 50 yard intervals.

Woohoo!

What posessed me? Well, I was noticing that, while my laps were becoming more and more (and more) comfortable, getting to a point where I could almost feel myself falling into a groove, requiring very little conscious thought to complete each stroke, my laps were also becoming slower. I wouldn't really have thought it possible. In the earlier days of "full stroke" crawl swimming, I would hit around a 1:12 per 50-yard pace. My record was something like 1:09 per 50 yards. In fact, attempts to swim faster would backfire, and I would actually go slower.

But now, I was averaging something like 1:16 per 50-yard lap. I was more comfortable, but I was slowing down. I'm sure the one fed into the other, but it wasn't the direction I wanted to go.

Was I getting too comfortable with the crawl? Was I getting, in a way, lazy? There was only one way to find out.

I decided to do a 50 yard "sprint". Actually, I think I had only intended to do a single length, but I continued on to the full lap out of habit.

When I completed the 50 yards, I checked my sportcount and was amazed to see the time. 1:03 and change. Wow. (OK, maybe you wouldn't be excited about shaving off six seconds, but I sure was/am. That's like... wait a minute... carry the one... almost a nine percent reduction in time!)

I caught my breath (something I once had to do in the middle of a length 25-yard crawl) and went on a slow recovery lap. Rinse, lather, repeat. Well, once. That was enough for the first time.

I'm certainly no Dana Torres, but I'm definitely becoming more fish-like. In my thirties. Who woulda thunkit?

A Glimmer of Home in a World of Flatsploitation

2009-07-21T20:27:00.001-07:00

I painted a somewhat bleak picture about the (mis)representation of the overweight in television yesterday, so here I am today to post a follow-up.

The glimmer of hope? Lifetime's Drop Dead Diva. (The Style Network's Ruby deserves an honorable mention, and it is on its second season, so there's hope to be found in more than one place.)

To be honest, I looked forward to Drop Dead Diva with a touch of trepidation. Would it do the right thing? Would it delve into shallowness? Would it be misunderstood like Shallow Hal (which, actually, was a fat-positive movie, though most people didn't stop either laughing at the visual gags or scolding the skinny actress portraying the fat girl's "inner beauty" enough to understand that.)

If you are unfamiliar with Drop Dead Diva, let me give you a quick summary of the pilot: Insecure overweight lawyer (Jane) gets fatally shot. Gorgeous and shallow girl (Deb), whose big ambition is to become a Price is Right model, T-bones a fruit truck and dies. Slender Deb manages to escape the afterlife, but ends up in the oversized body of Jane.

I know, right? It soooo could go either way. Well, it could have. The good news is not only is this a good show, but it appears to be great. I waited until the end of the second episode to decide this. (It was the best I could do.)

How much do I love Drop Dead Diva? Enough that I'm going to provide a bulleted list. I know, right? I didn't even do that for my over-long review of my Garmin! Alright, on with the list!

Brooke Elliott's behaviors change tangibly from playing Jane before and after the soul switcheroo. This is good because it's hitting on the idea that peoples' responses to sizeable women is not always about the size; it's often about the attitude. (I remember an advice columnist once telling an overweight man that the reason he can't find a date is not because he's overweight, but because he acts as if he should apologize for taking up everyone else's air.) Note that this is not sending the message that all fat girls are insecure. From other cast, it's clearly sending the message that insecurity was part of Jane's problem.

But it's not all about attitude; Jane is sometimes treated differently because of her size/appearance. When Jane goes for research in a bar, looking fairly nice, she's treated "ok", but her hot friend gets a free drink. Her boss treats her like a welcome mat, even when she starts to assert herself. (There's even a bit about how she should think like another overweight woman, well, just because they're both overweight.)

Jane is brilliant. Is this playing against the stereotype that blonde girls (like Deb was) are ditzy? Not really. It's made very clear that Jane has/had a high I.Q. so, like her insecurity, this is specific to Jane. The same stands about Deb's previous average (or so) intelligence.

Deb, her svelte figure a thing of the past, finds herself (or Jane's body?) drawn to donuts and chocolate. Hmmm... possible stereotype, but they're covering that a bit with the notion that the body feels comforted in certain places and with certain foods. Since it's been made clear that hormone levels and other body/brain chemistry affects cravings and hunger, it's not outlandish. Beyond that, this is a tv show. Play along and appreciate the thought.

Stacy, Deb's friend from a previous life (now Jane's friend, of course) tries to help Deb/Jane by helping her lose weight. This, she thinks, will help Deb get her life back. Her clumsy attempts at helping Jane (for example, she changes Jane's drink order to cut calories) are not only a bit funny, but make the viewer sympathize not only with Jane, but with Stacy. We know she means well, but the problem is obvious.

I'm not sure that Jane will decide to lose weight. I'm pretty sure she won't. This is a good thing.

Deb/Jane hasn't magically figured everything out (yet). She is sad when she sees herself in the mirror. She is flummoxed by the changes this new body brings. (Comfortable bra, anyone?) She doesn't quite "get it" when people treat her differently or, ironically enough, when she finds herself treating an overweight woman with a little bit of improper judgement. She's torn and mixed up, but she's learning.

I'll admit that I was a little taken aback by one particular moment in the pilot. Deb/Jane is with her guardian angel, Fred (played by Ben Feldman who reminds me more than a little of Chachi), and she asks him to make her skinny and hot. (I'm paraphrasing.) Fred responds that he's not a miracle worker. I wanted him to say something else. Something more like, "I can't make you skinny, but hot is a lot closer than you think." Or something like that. I'm not a script writer.

But I think that's part of the journey that Deb is on. She's got to figure that out for herself. Let me tell you: Brooke Elliott, the leading lady in this show, already knows that she's hot. Her character still needs to figure that out.

Let me make that clear. Jane isn't a woman who's unattractive because she's fat. She's unattractive for all the right reasons: poor styling, poor attitude, poor self-image. Let's compare Brooke Elliott in and out of character. (It should be fairly obvious which is which, but I'll tell you anyway that Jane is the top photo.)

Photo credits: The-F-Word (who, by the way, gets it wrong by bashing the show long before it actually aired) and access hollywood.

Sure, the show may be sappy tripe at times but, for the most part, it gets it right. This makes me happy.

Fatsploitation

2009-07-20T21:46:00.000-07:00

I recall an old episode of E.R. It's probably the only episode I can remember anything about. An illness was spreading through the hospital and it was hard to pin down. They finally realized that it was a staff member who was not washing his or her hands after using the restroom. Now it was just a matter of discovering the lazy, unclean idiot.

Please don't let it be the fat guy, I remember thinking. Don't do it, I silently pleaded. You see, I knew about the stereotype.

Sure enough, it was the fat guy. Of course. Because, according to the world of television, overweight characters are lazy, unintelligent, or both. (Or worse.) Look around and you'll see the stereotype played out time and time again. It's awful, and it reinforces itself. Fat characters are, the majority of the time, hapless fools or idiots, and often slovenly and lazy. One noteable exception was Camryn Manheim of The Practice... but she had to challenge the producer to a game of chess for the right to be cast despite her weight. (She later won an Emmy for that role, for what it's worth.)

This is not my imagination. If you're interested, you can read more at pubmed. Though there are exceptions, it appears that television is not improving much in this area, and it continues to reinforce those stereotypes. It's nearly impossible to find an overweight character not cast in a role of a socially inept fool with a poor work ethic.

Worse yet, producers appear to be more brazen as they create television shows which actively exploit the overweight. The Biggest Loser is, thankfully, an exception. But, wait, is it? Do you get the word play in the title? Even the winner is, surprise surprise, a loser. Deep down in my gut, I feel that the show would have, indeed, exploited the contestants if it weren't for the good, strong hearts of Bob and Jillian, the trainers who succeeded in making it a - for the most part - positive show.

I've already talked about my fears with More to Love here. My suspicions have yet to be confirmed there, but I can see unabashed fatsploitation on Oxygen with Dance Your Ass Off. In fact, ironically enough, I had high hopes for that show. I imagined a show of empowerment and positivity. I even played along until I saw them dance on the first episode.

Every outfit, or nearly every outfit, for the overweight dancers had an exposed belly. Seriously? Just in case we missed the "grotesqueness" of it all, the episode was titled "Shake and Rattle Those Rolls". Seriously? Seriously. My hopes at a positive show of overweight people meeting physical challenges were dashed. Here are a couple of examples:

(Photo credit obvious, but here's another link.)

Just try and tell me that the folk in wardrobe weren't told to purposely make these women look worse. I mean, I agree that overweight people can be (are) beautiful, but they - like everyone else! - need to dress properly for their bodies. There's no way they couldn't have dressed either of these women better. Instead of putting them in flattering outfits, they dressed them to make a point: "See how obscene these fatties are? Isn't it gross?"

Well, yes. The outfits are gross. But they are't.

Subsequent episodes haven't gotten much better. The third episode involved a stripper pole. Um, yeah. Real subtle.

Joel McHale, on The Soup, said it well: "Dance Your Ass Off continues to be the biggest exploitation of overweight people since they started putting cookie dough in ice cream." Let's face it: If The Soup is calling something exploitative... Well, that's saying something, isn't it?

Let me leave you with this: There is good news out there in tv land. But it will wait until tomorrow. I've babbled long enough for one day.

Uphill Against the Wind... Both Ways!

2009-07-17T22:31:00.001-07:00

If you ride, you've surely noticed that the first five minutes of any ride can be some of the most difficult. You struggle until your body loosens up, the endorphins start to kick in, and you find your groove. That difficulty happened today. Only it wasn't for the first five minutes; it was for the whole hour and a half.

What a hard ride! Yeah, it was hot, and yeah, there were some hills, but nothing I haven't tackled regularly. I was slow, and I was weak. I know it's impossible, but it sure felt like I was pushing uphill and against a headwind both ways. I finished the ride, but I seriously thought about sitting down at the side of the road and pretending I had a flat. (Come to think of it, I should have been able to easily avoid that glass I rode through. I wonder if that was my subconscious trying to create a flat.)

Anyway, I finished, and I (sort of) enjoyed the scenery despite the weakness. Sorry I didn't take any pictures. Really, today's ride reminded me of why I love Reno and have developed a "meh" feeling towards San Diego. The overdeveloped city down by the overpopulated seaside can't hold a candle to the Reno area's beautiful fields and untouched mountain ranges.

About an hour into my ride, I finally hit upon the reason for my weakness. (At least what I believe to be the reason.) I gave blood on Tuesday. I didn't recover quickly the last time I gave blood, so I was planning on waiting until winter to give again, but they called and claimed to be low on my blood type. I really had to think long and hard before agreeing to go in and donate. But I gave in, I gave, and - so they claim - I saved three lives. I guess that's worth it. No, I know that's worth it. It's not like I have sponsors counting on my performance, so if I can do good I should. But hear me now, United Blood Services: I sure as heck won't be donating right before any event, so plan your phone calls carefully! (Please.)

Gravity Always Wins

2009-07-15T21:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't been doing much training lately because, other than being out of town, I'm back to planting a ton of litte bitty plants. I'm almost done, so I do plan on hitting the gym (and the weights) tomorrow. (For the record, gardening and composting are righteous workouts in and of themselves.)

Nevertheless, with a lack of anything else to say, it's time to tell the story of my right leg. You see, back on Memorial Day, I learned a lesson in physics while on a bike ride. I was on paved path A. I realized that I wanted to be on paved path B, where my friend was. I had already come to a complete stop. I looked down and saw some gravel between path A and path B. OK, no problem, I thought to myself. I know it's gravel and I'll be fine since I'm aware of it and it's only, what, five feet?

Um, yeah. Little did I know that under the gravel lay an inch of fine powder and silt. I barely had time to think, Oh, this might be a bad idea, before I found myself on the ground. It had happened so quickly that I don't believe I even had the time to consider about unclipping.

Awful road rash, and not even a macho story to go with it. For those with a strong stomach, you can find pictures chronicling the wound and the healing process here. The first two pictures are on the same day (one shortly after the accident and one at home after cleaning as best I could). After that, it's a picture a day until I got bored. It looks quite a bit better now, but I'm still taking steps to reduce scarring.

This might be a good time to mention that I also have a purple big toenail on my right foot, a souvenier from my kayaking trip. The strategy was, "If it looks like we're going to roll over, just get out." Sure enough, we did dump somewhere down the river, and my toe found a nice rock. People assumed that the purple toenail and the roadrash were related, but they weren't.

Now, onto more recent events. While in San Diego, as you know, I went running. Let me tell you something: If San Diego won't spend the money to fix their sidewalks, then there's no hope for any other city's sidewalks. They are absolutely awful... Bad enough, I daresay, that I felt a little homesick. On one run, I pondered the terrible state of the sidewalk, and noted that I should probably pick up my feet a little.

About a block later, I stumbled. I have no idea on what, but I stumbled. This time, I was able to think it through in slow motion. Oh, shit. Wait, no, I can stumble my way ouf this. Just step a little bit, oh, here I go, and... DAMN. Mere inches away from my old road rash, I have another wonderful bit of road rash. Beautiful.

So, let's recount: A purple toe and about twenty-five square inches of road rash, earned from three separate events.

I have no idea what my right leg did to gravity, but it's sorry. It would like to call a truce. The white flag is flying high.

Now, onto another tidbit. For the record, I always carry a camera with me on rides. However, the camera is rarely used because, while I enjoy the splendid views, I'm rarely willing to stop to take the picture. That's the weird irony of cycling: I ride to beautiful spots, but am unwilling to stop and take any pictures.

But then I read, in VeloNews's Race & Ride Guide, a little blurb about a particular camera. In it, is this tidbit: "Having a smal, flat, digital camera with a big back screen and string loop is key to snapping quick shotts while you're rolling, without crashing." Wait, do people really snap pictures while riding?

I slowly recall that I read this charming and funny blog post by Fatty of Fat Cyclist (no relation). I hadn't thought it through at that time, but it does confirm that, indeed, people do click and ride.

You know, when I was in elementary school, I rode my bike while reading a book. I may have only done it once, just to prove that I could, but I did do it. I wonder if I should work on the skills necessary to take some photos while rolling. I might be able to do it, with some slow practice.

My right leg begs me not to even try.

Home Again

2009-07-13T23:19:00.000-07:00

OK, I've returned home and returned to reality. The scale tells me that I've gained a whopping 3.4 pounds in the last week. Luckily, I don't give a crap what the scale says. Well, that's not quite true. I take the number my scale spits out and enter it into an app on my iphone that averages my weight and then gives me a "true weight". This bump (and, probably, the week without data) is throwing off my average.

But... Bah. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Either I've gained a few pounds, in which case I'll lose it again and consider being more vigilant in the future, or it's water weight from less-than-ideal nutrition during my "free" week which I'll lose again. Same difference.

What's more important (much more important) is that I had a blast in San Diego, with not a small part of the fun taking place in either my running shoes or a cycling jersey. (I wanted to spend some time in my cute swim dress, but that didn't happen. Bummer.)

Have I mentioned how much I love the ability to take a route from bikely.com (ahem, after checking the distance and elevation profile), or create a route, upload it to GPS Kit (or Trails) on my iPhone, hook the iPhone up to my handlebars, and follow a route without having to constantly look for street signs? It's absolutely fantastic. I was able to leave my mom's inland house, cruise down to the beaches, tour around, even take an unplanned detour, and return "home" without any stress. Here's one of the trips I took, in all its "satellitic" glory:

The first time I did this, though, I made the mistake of listening to music over bluetooth. The iPhone battery did not survive the nearly four hour ride (with sightseeing and lunch). I was able to remember enough of the route to make it back "home" without a problem, but I stopped by a construction crew to make sure I was going the right way on one long road. Just in case.

"Excuse me, but XYZ Blvd is this way, right?"

Long pause as they all stare and blink at me.

"Yeah," a woman finally says.

"Thanks, that's what I thought."

As I'm just starting to pedal off, the guy halfway in the ground pipes up, his voice a little uneasy, "You have a long way to go."

I respond, a chuckle in my voice, "Oh, I knew that!" and ride off, grinning broadly to myself.

Actually, I was only about three miles away from the street I was asking about. They might have been a bit surprised to know that, when chatting with them, I was somewhere around mile 37 of my 42 mile ride.

I didn't have the battery problem when I switched to using my shuffle for music and letting my iPhone only worry its little head about GPS. With enough tweaking, I could probably get it to guide me through a six hour ride.

I might just have to describe the system in greater detail later. For now, let's just say that this will change how I go about visiting and cycling in unknown cities. I think it's time to stop daydreaming about a long cycling tour (we're talking weeks, here) and start planning it out. I really do.

I wonder how I'll recharge my iPhone... Hmmm... One slight flaw, but not an insurmountable one. Man, I love technology.

Issues Old and New

2009-07-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

Just popping in to say hello.

I wonder who coached my mother. She doesn't know about this site (I think), but she's been great. In fact, for a while, I was waiting for her to say something about my weight loss. I had expected her to say something right away, but... nothing. I started getting a bit angry, actually. I mean, come on, it's been 50 pounds since I last saw her. (I know, she can't win. If she says something, I resent it, and if she says nothing, I resent it.) So, finally, she said something. Twice. And nothing since.

Honestly, mom, that's perfect. Thanks. You couldn't have done better if I had written a script for you.

But today I hit true awkwardness: My sister. She's also fought with weight her whole life. It's been a bit harder for her, and she typically hits higher highs than me and doesn't quite get as low as I have in the past. Today she sees me and, well, it's not great. She has that expression on her face... I guess it's the one I'd have if the situation were reversed. I feel guilty (sort of) yet proud for losing weight, and she feels frustrated (sort of) for not and not a little resentful of my success.

Well, we each have to walk our own paths, but that doesn't make it any easier.

A while later, she brings it up again and talks about her recent attempts at weight loss and I - being the idiot that I am - offer help.

She laughs. "Help?"

"Well, you know, not help, but, you know, if you have questions..."

Oh, this isn't getting any better.

I finally grow a clue and shut up.

And, again, I remind myself that I'm not going to let myself derail my journey over any awkwardness or weird dynamic in my family. I've picked my path, I've worked hard on it, I'm enjoying it, and I'm looking forward to what it holds for me further down the line.

I feel bad that I can't help her on her path, but maybe that's the point. She needs to find and face her own demons. I can't fight them for her. In fact, for all I know, I may be one of them (as my mother has been one of mine).

Regardless, I do hope she finds her own path, whether it's discovering joy at her current weight or working to a lifestyle (and body) in which she'll be happy.

I wish I had been smart enough to say that.

Can I Just Bring My Bathroom Scale?

2009-07-05T21:35:00.000-07:00

My name is Karen, and I'm a data-a-holic. And I'm afraid of this upcoming week.

I'm going down to visit my mother. Let's not even talk about the issues that brings up. She's going to be so happy that I've lost all this weight... and I'm going to be uncomfortable about it. Why? Who knows. I know I don't, and I'm pretty sure even my therapist hasn't figured it out yet. I guess it would have been a good idea to bring it up at our last session, so I could come up with some strategies, but... Oh well, hindsight. I guess I'll just have to repeat in my head, "I'm doing this for me, not for her, and who cares if she thinks otherwise." Maybe that'll work. If not, I'll improvise. No way I'm going to let my "mom issues" derail my progress, dammit. Hmm... I guess we did talk about the issues. Oops.

Anyway, back to my addiction. If you've been following me and my progress at all, you'll already know that I border on OCD with my penchant for meticulous number-crunching. I weigh my food to the gram. Seriously. And I log it all, of course. I weigh myself every day and take my bodyfat reading every day, both so that I can enter them into "averaging" software. I count every calorie I burn (or try to) so that I can maintain (or at least shoot for) a particular caloric deficit.

For the next week, I won't be doing any of that. Well, I might try to use her ridiculous spring bathroom scale, but it'll throw off my numbers.

I'm already feeling withdrawal.

Yes, I did seriously consider bringing my fantastically accurate digital bathroom scale.

Seriously.

No, no, no... I won't bring it.

I think.

For a week, I'll have to do it like "real" people do it. Watching my portions, listening to my body. Eating when I'm hungry and not when I'm bored. Exercising for the adrenaline rather than the caloric burn that allows me to eat a little more.

Yes, I'm nervous.

I'll still track my workouts for my training logs (and for the challenges over at daily burn), but that'll be it.

And I'll be doing it while visiting my mom.

Yes, this week will be interesting.

Wish me luck. No, really. I mean it this time. Or, if you prefer, wish me sanity. It might be nice to know how that feels.

Race Report

2009-07-05T16:41:00.001-07:00

OK, time to cover yesterday's race. It was a lovely area, a beautiful day, and a good turnout. Assuming they have the I-Can again next year, I plan on registering.

Let's get the pressing question out of the way: I didn't medal.

Oh, that wasn't the pressing issue? I guess not. So, how did I do in "my own race"? I ran it well enough. Well, most of it, at least. See, I knew there was a risk when the description said, "relatively flat neighborhood streets," because the question remains: Relative to what?

The start was on a hill.

Upon the starting... um... yell, I trudged upward, optimistic that this would be the worst of it. The truth is that that little hill was the steepest portion, but that wasn't the only hill. We made a quick left and found... another hill.

A woman beside me panted, "I thought this was flat."

I smiled and nodded. I then replied, "It's OK. The hills give me permission to walk," which I then proceeded to do in a short while. I walked only occasionally and only uphill. (I scratched my head a little at the people who ran uphill and then walked at the top; I figure that's a little backwards, but whatever works for them, I guess.)

I lost sight of most of the pack early enough, dropping off from most of the runners and leaving the walkers behind me. I caught back up with a few runners who didn't understand the importance of pacing (or, it seemed for at least one couple, training). That's OK, I was running my own race. You understand.

The odd thing was that, every time I looked at my watch, I was maintaining a pace between 11:00 and 12:30, or thereabouts. I must only have looked when I was really booking, though, because my overall pace doesn't reflect those speeds.

Somewhere around the middle of the course, I fell in line with a young lady (or, perhaps, she fell in line with me). She didn't have much stamina, but made up for it with moxie. She'd run at a decent pace (not sprinting, but faster than me), and then settle in for a walk. To her credit, she didn't seem to do the "stay ahead of the fat lady" that I spoke about here from my last 5k (about two years ago). She was simply racing her own race, a little at a time. But we were leap-frogging.

We were until we got near the end, that is. I like to kick it up at the end, so I did. The instant she saw me right behind her shoulder, she kicked it up herself. Now, this was probably the wrong attitude to take at this time, but I figured: Hey, she's not in my age group, I'll let her have this, and steadied myself. No, I didn't slow down, but I didn't push as hard as I could have right before the chute.

In retrospect, I regret this. I also regret not pushing hard enough for most of the 5k. I should have been much more worn at the end, so I was clearly holding back too much the entire time. Sure, I probably would have walked a bit no matter what, but I think I could have done better, gone just a little faster. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the run immensely; I just suspect I could have done better. So, what to do? That's right, I already signed up for two more 5K events.

My time? I don't know my official time yet. I didn't see a clock at the end, and we weren't using chips, but I did see someone with the little hand-held doo-dad which I suspect was used to record official times. I know I wasn't last overall, but I may have been last for the registered 5K runners. (I couldn't tell walkers from runners on their board.) Well, I'll find out soon enough. I should have been able to approximate my time with my Garmin, but, unfortunately, I clicked it off a little late. It reported 40:37. (Argh! Close enough that I could have easily beaten my PR.)

Honestly, considering the (mild) hills, I'm pretty happy with how I did. Now I'll really have to get going on the interval work so I can pulverize my PR at the next 5K (in late August).

Silence Is, Um, Silent

2009-07-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been lax in posting. It's not that I'm slacking; I just have nothing to say. I've been hitting the gym, but going light on the running/cardio because of my upcoming race. I also am gardening like mad because we just had 200 or so (no exaggeration) little plants arrive and I'm the only one in the house who can plant them. Sigh. Even while on vacation, life can get in the way.

For kicks, I looked up my last 5k time (from way back in October of 2006): 39:15.5, 42nd in my age group (out of 61). This is about the pace at which I've been running for long, steady runs, so I'm not expecting to PR on Saturday. Of course, a lot has happened since then and now, so if I even come close to that time, I'll be pretty satisfied.

My eating habits have been all over the map lately. Not bad, not good, just... well, just ok. I have been maintaining a slight deficit overall, and the scale is starting to creep downward again. So, there's that.

OK, enough babbling. If you're in the mood for more, check out some of the blog links I added in the sidebar; they're normally pretty good. (Or I wouldn't have listed them, right?)

Review of Garmin Forerunner 405 cx

2009-06-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

Alright. I've had this new toy for nearly a month. I guess it's time to get myself in gear (Ha! Get it?! Gear? Oh, nevermind...) and write a review. (The alternative is to actually think of something something interesting to write about, and my brain is too fried for that. A five mile hike in too much sun/heat with too little tree cover was just miserableness and more than a little cranky.)

For anyone interested, I did do a review nearly two years ago of my Forerunner 305. At that time, I compared it to my 301. This review will probably follow suit and compare it a bit with the 305. You may want to know that I have nothing else with which to compare it; it's been Forerunners the whole way for me.

You may also wish to note that I'm talking about the 405cx, not the regular 405. The cx part is the straw that got me to finally bite the bullet and upgrade my GPS/HR monitor (can I mangle any more cliche metaphors?). The key about the cx is that it uses heart rate information to improve on its calorie calculations.

Well, let's go ahead and start there: calorie calculations. While I can't vouch for their actual, ultimate accuracy, I will say that they are clearly improved from previous Forerunners. You see, here's how the calorie calculations went before: You took thirty minutes to climb five miles up a hard hill. That's 300 calories. You took ten minutes to speedily coast back down that hill. That's 700 calories. OK, sure, the numbers are pulled out of my rear end, but the reality is that the Garmin looked at velocity/distance only and did not take other factors like elevation change properly into account. Now? It knows that you worked much harder climbing up than coasting down (or hiking up the mountain vs. strolling back down). Again, it's nearly impossible to know exactly how accurate the calculations really are, but they are within reasonable ranges, so I'm trusting them until they prove untrustworthy.

Probably one of the most striking improvements over the 305 is the appearance. Size-wise it's actually nearly the same. But factor in shape and it's a whole new ball-game. There's no way that I'm going to go to work and just casually wear this thing as my watch, but it looks much less like I took a computer and strapped it to my wrist. (The surprising downfall here is that it now looks a little more odd when strapped to my handlebars.)

Here I have it strapped to my wrist next to my normal watch. (You may admire my fantastically fuzzy German arm, if you wish. But do so silently, please.) You may not see it from the photo, but this does lead to one annoyance (of a few) with the 405 cx: because the antenna is part of the watch band, part of the band is rigid. This actually leads it to sit awkwardly on my wrist, almost facing farther away and causing me to turn my wrist more to read the dial. This sounds almost inconsequential, but it's annoying to not be able to adjust it.

Continuing on with the "form factor", there are two more major changes. One is the bezel. Rather than pushing buttons to navigate through menus, you run your finger along the bezel in a circular motion. You also switch between modes by touching and holding the bezel. Some people love the bezel; some people hate it. I'm pretty neutral. I mean, it's OK, but it's nothing special. I can use it through my medium-thick running gloves, but if it gets too wet (from rain), the bezel becomes unresponsive until I dry it off. Not a big issue for me, but it might be big for someone in, say, Seattle where residents have gills (so I hear). It's water resistant, so it doesn't break, per se; it just becomes unresponsive until it's quickly dried off.

The other issue is driving me a bit battier. They've moved the start/stop buttons from the front back to the side. This means that I can accidentally stop a workout by pushing a button (with the back of my hand, I guess). This has happened once when strength training and twice when hiking. Little is more irritating than finding that a significant portion of your workout has gone unrecorded because you somehow inadvertendly pressed stop. Definitely a negative.

One final note on form: The strap is more difficult to open and close. This may soften over time. The 405 cx does come with two velcro straps for sizing or preference, but danged if I can switch them out. I know how to switch out the straps, but I just can't get use the fork-thing to grab and slide the little doohiky enough to get it unattached. (If you had the watch, you'd understand.) So I'm dealing with the default rubber(?) watch band. It does look nicer than the velcro probably would, so I'm coping.

OK, enough about form. Let's move on to function. Back to the heart rate monitor. The connection between the watch and the heart rate strap seems vastly improved. I barely get the watch "woken up" or put the heart rate strap on when the watch tells me that the heart rate monitor has been detected. Wow. No loss of signal; no interference. Re-pairing with other accessories (foot pod and bike sensor) is just as lightening fast. I'm impressed.

Speaking of lightening fast, can we talk about GPS signal? It used to be that I'd have to stand around for quite some time before I got a good signal. I'd have to stretch, fiddle with the bike, or do something else to keep myself from looking too lame while the 305 searched for satellites. I think I even once had a neighbor wonder if I was trying to figure out how to break into his house while I was just standing there waiting for my 305 to get its act together. No such problem with this watch. On a slow day it takes maybe five seconds to get a signal. Niiiicceee.

And once it gets a signal? It's locked on. I have yet to have a problem from buildings or tree cover. It used to be a little bit of a joke to forgive my poor 305 (worse yet, the 301) for thinking that it took, say, 3.51 miles to climb up the wooded mountain trail and, say, 3.68 miles to come back down on the same path. It's a tiny antenna and it's doing the best it can, I'd say. Corners get cut; things happen. Not with the 405cx. One distance up, same exact distance back. Maybe one one hundredth of a mile in difference. I sure can't complain about that.

I can complain about the software. Same cruddy training software as the 301 and the 305. I was excited about Garmin Connect, but it's really nothing to get excited about. Other online software does much better. Sure, it may be "prettier" than Buckeye Outdoors, but it doesn't have half the power. So I'm sticking with Buckeye and SportTracks.

Regarding the software of the unit itself, there is good, and there is bad. Let's start with the good. The virtual traing partner is an interesting novelty, but not without its flaws. (Racing against a virtual partner that goes at a steady pace is slightly frustrating when you have stop lights and hills to contend with.) Chances are, though I haven't used it yet, that the courses feature will be much better because I can race against a former "me", using data from a previous workout.

Another good: Garmin listened to me and finally made "today's workout" a snap to access. Two taps on the bezel and I'm presented with the workout I had scheduled for the day, ready for me to press enter and begin. Only problem? Apparently I'm only allowed to do one workout per day. If you schedule more than one, too bad. I had hoped that, having completed the first workout, it would automatically switch to the next scheduled workout for the day. No such luck; I have to go through a few menus to access the advanced workouts. Ah, well, can't have everything, right?

On to the bad. First, if I want to switch from running mode to biking mode (they eliminated "other" for some unfathomable reason), it takes no less than nine bezel swipes and taps. Not a killer, but definitely an annoyance. If I'm going to do an advanced workout which already is set up for a particular sport, though, it will switch automatically, so it's not an annoyance I have to deal with often.

On to the really bad. If I switch from biking mode to running mode, certain things will switch automatically. (For example, I have it to auto-pause when I'm stopped when biking, but to not auto-pause when running. It remembers and falls in line.) However, the data fields it displays do not switch over. Let me give you the big example. When I'm running, I want to know what? Pace, of course. But when I'm biking, I couldn't care less about pace; I want speed. The 405 cx? Doesn't switch the display between the two modes. Seriously, Garmin? That's a huge oversight. That means that I have to set it up to display both speed and pace, unless I want to go through the hassle of reconfiguring the data fields to display every time I switch from running to biking or back. I don't want to do that, so I'm having to use precious screen real estate to always show both, which means I'm always faced with looking at something I don't care about.

Beyond that, though, the 405 cx is extremely configurable in its display. Do you want to see three things per screen? Two? One? How about three on the first screen and two on the second and get rid of the third? Done. (You can set the Garmin to automatically switch between the screens if you want, and the speed is also configurable. I like this feature.) And for your options as to what data to show, it's insane. There are not enough data screens to show all the things I'd want to show (not that I need all of them, mind you). Just to list a few of the many options for the data fields: There's time elapsed, of course, and time of day. There's cadence (current) or average cadence or just your cadence for the current lap. There's distance and elevation and heart rate (with variations). You can have it show your heading (N/S/E/W) or pace or speed or - I kid you not - sunset in case you really want to push your run to the edge of daylight.

The one significant feature missing from the display: GPS tracks. I liked that I was able to see my little GPS tracks on the 305. No, it wasn't as good as a map, but it was nice to be able to see where I had already been so I could easily track back to the known trail/path. I can't do that now. I can have it tell me how to get back to the start (or a marked waypoint) with an arrow pointing the way (as the crow flies), but what if I don't want to get back to the beginning, but rather want to get back to the path? No such luck. This isn't a deal-breaker for me (obviously), but sure is a sad feature to lose.

OK, let's see, what have I missed in this (huuuuuggggeeeee) review? Ah, yes, the new feature that is supposedly soooo fantastic: the wireless ANT sync. Yes. My computer now can grab my workout from my watch without me having to hook it up. Big whoop. Sorry, but I just don't care much about this one. Sure, I guess it's one less cable and one less docking cradle, but, well, it's just not that big a deal. And it does have times where it fails, so it actually takes longer to wait for it to attempt another transfer. Really, I'd rather just hook it up and have it sync the first time, every time.

And... um.... Hey, I think I covered it! Oh, wait, no I didn't. A couple more things.

The beeps are a little quieter. I can still hear them over my music (yeah, yeah, shame on me for exercising with headphones, moving on...), but I have to be careful about the volume. It does have different tones when you're going too fast vs. going too slow, which is good. It still plays a cute victory song when your workout is finished, which isn't good or bad but still makes me inexplicably giddy and happy.

Also, I've focused mainly on comparisons against the previous model, so let me mention a big selling point (to me): The customizable workout programs. Seriously, you can create a workout for nearly anything you want to work on. Want to work at a particular pace? Done. Heart rate? OK. Distance? Easy. A combination? Okiedokie. Alternating between various stages? No problemo. Intervals? Warm-up, main set(s), cool-down? Done, done, and done. I seriously can't imagine training without my Garmin guiding me through specific workouts. Again, the reporting software leaves quite a bit to be desired, but, again, this is easily remedied with the donation-ware SportTracks. (I wonder if I donated already. Either way, I should probably donate (again). It's good stuff.)

OK, I think that's it. Feel free to ask any questions. One thing's for sure: The hike did not damage my propensity toward verbosity.

Overall, I'm happy I switched to the 405 cx. The improved calorie calculation, snappy accessory re-pairing, and vastly improved GPS signal are not insignificant changes. (I think the elevation reporting is even improved.) Sure, there are some "quirks" which make me want to slap my forehead, but I haven't found the perfect GPS/HR monitor yet, so gradual improvement will have to do, even at the cost of occasional slip-ups.

More to Mock?

2009-06-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

Confession time: I watch tv. A lot. Too much. Well, I guess most of the time it's just on in the background while I'm doing something else. (Sadly, the times that that "something else" is using my $800 elliptical are way too infrequent. Well, the elliptical will be waiting when winter is back.)

Sorry, I'm rambling. I have a point today. (Yes, really.) More and more frequently, on Fox, I'm seeing commercials for a new dataing "reality" show. Ah, but before you storm off in disgust, know that there may be reason for you to be even more (or less?) disgusted. There's a twist, you see. Whether this twist makes the show better or worse is a complicated issue, but I'm leaning to worse.

The twist? I'll explain it the same way the producers do. You see, the average woman on a reality show is a size two. The average woman in the US is a size 14/16. So, this show, titled More to Love, aims to bring reality back to reality tv by casting this show with regular sized women... who appear to actually be around size 18/20 or 22/24. (Why use actual "average" women when you can use women who are clearly well into obese?) Although, I'll give them credit. They did choose women who have the lovely, shapely, overweight-with-an-hourglass, Rubenesque figure that I could only dream of at any weight. (I can't find pictures of the cast, but I did find a site that has a video of the promo here.)

And, yes, the guy is overweight himself and clearly has a penchant for women of size. So it's not a show with the nastiness of Average Joe or any of those shows where these "beautiful" (on the outside at least) people are shocked and stunned to be paired with less-than-stunning people. Oh, the horror. Pardon me while I finish rolling my eyes.

OK, so what's the problem, some of you may be asking. Sure, sure. Part of me wants to believe that this show will get the public to see inner beauty, and even the outer beauty of these contestants. It's equality regardless of size, something I've championed, right? The producer even says, “We want to send the message that you can be the size you are and still be lovable... We aren’t going to thin these girls down so they can find love -- that’s a backwards message.” (source: James Hibberd's The Live Feed.)

So, OK. That actually sounds decent. But, let's remember, this is Fox. And a dating reality show. No good can come of this. (Can it?)

Let me switch to my problem with these dating shows in general. I've always wondered: Why do these twenty-five women, who seem fairly attractive and confident, throw themselves at (and fight over) a man they've just met? What is going on in their heads? There's an air of awful desperation, and that comes out very clearly during their "confessionals"... not to mention the all-too-soon and all-too-public intimacy on many of these shows. (No, I'm not a prude, but let's be real.) There is a very big, disturbing "wrongness" in these shows and the way they exploit people. (No, I don't regularly watch any of these shows, but I have watched enough to get a general idea.)

So, if these size two women have such a hard time looking sane on television, how will it be any better with "real" size women? I'm so very, very afraid that it won't. Let's face it: There's already a very real stereotype that overweight people are less intelligent and less capable. Do we really want to feed into the belief that they're also blubbering, desperate idiots? I know I don't, but I expect that this show will do just that.

I hope I'm wrong. I really, really do. But I just don't think I will be. And that saddens me.

Checking In

2009-06-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

Not much to say today, but I promised (to myself) that I would try to post no less frequently than every other day during the summer. (Have to keep the brain cells going somehow, right?)

So, I'm keeping up on my weight training and making some good gains in strength. The scale isn't moving in any significant manner, but I've decided that I don't care. Ha! Just kidding. Sure, I care, but it is what it is, and here's what's making me feel much, much better about it: My bodyfat is steadily dropping.

For example, last Saturday, my super-secret spreadsheet showed me that, while I had only lost 0.2 pounds in averaged weight, I had lost 0.6 pounds in averaged bodyfat. So I gained lean body mass. Sure, 0.4 pounds in lean body mass may sound incredibly insignificant, but considering how much lean mass I had previously been losing, this huge. (Typically, about half of my weight loss would be lean body mass. Yuck!) Would I rather still be dropping bodyweight? Sure, of course. But this is what it is for now, and as long as I'm progressing in some way, I can't be down on myself. (And, as regular readers know, I am progressing in many ways.)

One last note: My 5k is next weekend! Egads. Because I've put all my faith in lactate threshold training, I actually haven't run a solid 5k this year (without stopping). Of course, with only eight days between now and then, and my planned "taper" (ha!), I'm certainly not going to try now. However, I suspect that, once I put aside heart rate and lactate threshold for the race, focusing only on a reasonable and maintainable pace, I'll actually be able to run the whole thing.

The only thing that makes me a bit nervous (yeah, there is this) is that the 5k is about 2,000 feet higher than my stomping grounds. Yes, that change in elevation could be a problem. Or maybe it won't be. And if it is? Oh well, I'll do better next year. At least I'm getting out there. That's more than I can say about myself this time last year.

Well, that's it. Now stop reading silly blogs and go do something.

Rule #2 in Cycling: Everything is Relative

2009-06-23T21:28:00.000-07:00

No, I don't know what rule #1 is (yet), but today's lesson is certainly right up next to it. But first, I need to show you a picture of my bike:

Now, why do I start with a picture of my bike? Because you have to see my digital set-up. If you look closely at the handlebars, you'll see two gadgets. The one on the left is my (since-replaced by the newer model) Garmin Forerunner 305. To the right of it, the light blue thing, is my iPhone. Yes, I bought a rig to hold my iPhone on my bike. What of it?

OK, you may wonder why I did such a thing. (Or, you may be a fellow iPhreak, slowly nodding in approval.) It started out innocently enough. The GPS on my Garmin doesn't show me a full map, nor does it allow me to plan out a route out ahead of time (without actually doing it beforehand). With iPhone GPS and the right app, I can now do both.

Better yet, I've finally figured out how to download routes other people have laid out on Bikely. Rock. On. I can pre-load them on my GPS and follow the route without having to worry about trying to follow a cue sheet and peering at street signs. Sure, some are insane routes that I can only envision doing in the distant future. (Up and over Mt. Rose, anyone... and back??? Um, yeah, that'll wait a while.) But most variations on a fairly familiar theme. In other words, I'm fairly familiar with the area, but they're giving me some new streets to try. Nice.

Today, feeling a bit tired, I decide to follow a route called "20-Mile Flatter Loop". I take a quick glance and decide that it's perfect; it mostly meanders through a fairly flat part of South Reno.

I drive down to the part of the loop closest to me, set up, and set out. Man, I must be tired, I think to myself. I'm fighting as hard as if I'm hitting a headwind, but the trees are stock still. (Later, after looking at the elevation profile, I realize that I'm climbing a hidden hill right off the bat.) And then I hit a real hill. Still, I'm having a harder time than I should. I am, honestly, struggling. I don't recall ever having a "bad ride" in the same way people sometimes have a "bad run", but it looks like today was one.

So, anyway, I finish climbing that hill. It was actually a back way to Windy Hill, so I don't blame myself for struggling; it's always a hard climb for me. But I turn a hard left (almost a U-turn) and swing back down the hill, back into the flats. This is going to be a nice ride, I tell myself. This valley is a particulaly beautiful, almost rustic part of Reno.

A while later, my GPS tells me to take a turn I hadn't taken before. It goes from beautiful to spectacular. (Except, well, the smell... Someone must have laid out the fertilizer.) And, again, I'm climbing. I'm cursing myself for my weakness. Seriously, I'm bottomed out in gears and the incline really isn't that hard. But it goes on and on and on.

And on. I keep cresting, figuring that this is where I'll cruise back down.

Only to find another hill right after a very shallow dip.

This is the "flatter" route?!? Flatter than what?!?

Yes, everything is relative.

It's the hill that won't die.

At one point a quail runs across the street in front of me, but then takes a glance at me and decides it can slow down to a walk. And it does. I kid you not. Let me tell you, to be dissed by a quail is a special kind of insult.

I keep waiting for some cyclists to come whizzing past me, but no one ever does (thank goodness!). A group does pass me the other way, with big happy grins on their faces. Sure. They're going downhill. Actually, it almost looks like the last guy had a touch of respect in his smile, as if to say, Good for you, girl. This is a tough climb! Or maybe I was just delirious from lack of oxygen and imagined it. Either way.

Finally, after more than seven miles of this off-and-on climbing, I hit the final crest and launch into a fantastic 3.5 mile straight descent, during which I lose over 600 feet of elevation and top out at a slightly frightful 42.37 MPH. Yes, the point-37 is important, and, yes, that is my record speed.

The rest of the ride is nice and flat. And some of it is so new that it's not even "on the map"! For a while, it looks like I'm off-roading it. I never would have found some of these streets if it weren't for the Bikely and the iPhone GPS.

Here's a lovely shot I took during the flat part.

So, overall, a decent ride (considering I didn't mean to do anything more than an easy, flat 20), and it was a good experience to follow a route that I found on the internet.

But, most important, it was a good lesson in checking elevation profiles before heading out. A "flatter" ride to one cyclist can very easily be a "tougher" ride to me. Everything is relative. Everything.

EDIT: For anyone interested, here are links to the two parts for my iPhone bike mount: ATV holder and Rail with Swivel. You can get a more svelte holders, but those will be good only for one specific item. The ATV Holder is very generic and will last me quite some time. FWIW, these are not affiliate links.

Ban Hammer

2009-06-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

There is a very small number of foods "banned" from the house. I aim for everything in moderation rather than any sort of deprivation, but I occasionally find a food which is best kept out of my cupboard, where its siren song is muffled through distance to the point of nonexistence.

Alas, I am forced to consider an addition to the banned from the cupboard list: Nutella.

Please join me in a moment of mournful silence. In a few days, that is... Once I finish this jar. No sense in being wasteful. Surely you understand.

How Do I Break into Every Home and Replace the Scale with This?

2009-06-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

(via icanread via sabino)

If You Hate that it Happened...

2009-06-19T18:21:00.000-07:00

I think it's universal that we humans tend to look back and play "what if" games. What if I had stayed in college the first time around? What if I stayed with my high school boyfriend? What if I lost weight the first (or second or tenth) time that I tried? How would my life be different? Would it be better?

Sadly, many of us answer these questions with regret. The "what if" game turns into the "if only" game. Once that happens, it's no longer a game; it's far from entertainment.

But yesterday I found the consolation/inspiration in the oddest of places: an old episode of This American Life. At one point, a descendant of a woman involved in a significant tragedy addresses the issue of regret. Does she regret what happened to her ancestor? Her answer:

If you hate that it happened, then you hate that you are... And I don't hate that I am.

Those wise words reach well beyond her family's tragedy. They resonate in my heart as a lesson of acceptance of my own past. I can't hate those choices of my past; without them I wouldn't be. Without my mistakes, I wouldn't be the strong person I am today. I've had this thought before, but I never had such eloquent words to describe the attitude.

If you find yourself playing the "if only" game, I entreat you to remember her words. Do you hate that you are? Surely not. Then you cannot hate that it happened.

What's in a Name?

2009-06-17T17:36:00.000-07:00

It may (or may not) suprise you that I sometimes get flak for the name of this blog. I'm honestly surprised when people scold me for the name (and genuinely laugh at some of the looks on the faces of the few friends I've told about this blog), but I guess your reaction depends somewhat on your personal experiences and values. For me, it's just funny. It's also a bit of social protest. But, despite what you may think, it's not self-deprecating. Really, it's not. To explain, I'll begin with a couple of snapshots from my life.

First, let's travel back to childhood. I remember very clearly being really bothered by a Sears catalog (back when those catalogs came out once a year and were approximately the size of telephone books). I was perusing the clothing section of the catalog and hit what would now be called the "plus size" section, but for kids. The clothes for larger kids weren't labeled "plus size". They weren't labeled "for fatties" (but how hilarious would that have been?). They were labeled as clothes for "husky" kids. Husky. Say the word out loud; let it roll around in your mouth. Husky.

I was appalled. I knew I was overweight, and I knew that, somehow, this was something for me to be ashamed of (not that I agree, mind you, but I'll get there later), but this euphemism disgusted me. I loudly announced to my family that I never wanted to be called "husky". Overweight, fine. Fat even, fine. But husky? Don't you dare. The reasoning behind this verbiage eluded me. Obviously someone decided that overweight kids would prefer to be called husky, but I certainly was not one of them and could not imagine that any other overweight chld would like the term.

Fast forward to about a year and a half ago. I think I mentioned that I teach middle school children. They can, you may be shocked to hear, be darlings. For the past two years, I've been blessed with the sweetest, most empathetic group of middle school kids I'll probably ever have the pleasure of working with. But I digress.

I was trying to explain the meaning of the idiom "pot calling the kettle black" to a group of these seventh-grade girls. As an example, I was going to go with an easy one: the hypocritical hypothetical situation of me teasing someone else for being overweight. So, I begin to set up the scenario, and I say, "I'm bigger than most other teachers, right?"

They were appalled. "Miss ____! You should have more self-esteem!"

Wait, what? Why does talking frankly and matter-of-factly about my size constitute low self-esteem? I said it in the same way that I might have said that my hair was shorter than another teacher's hair, or that my shirt was blue. But they, bless them, believed that there is something innately wrong about being overweight, and to admit it was, somehow, a sign of low esteem. I can't blame them, because they're just children, but I'm amused and nonplussed to see this attitude around me constantly. People always have scolded me for calling myself fat... even when I was nearly double my "ideal" weight.

Honestly, even now, I'm not sure why someone should be ashamed to be overweight any more than they should be ashamed to be inactive or to be a smoker. It's a personal choice. Is it the best choice for a long, healthy, and happy life? Obviously not, but there are plenty of other poor life choices that don't have this sort of stigma.

Fat is a description. It is an adjective. It is no better nor worse than tall, short, blonde, or brunette. (Note that "fit" does not have this neutrality, but that's because people work hard to be fit. They don't work hard to be blonde.)

Hell, even NAAFA uses the word fat! (And, yes, I was once a card-carrying member. I still support the cause in principle, even if I don't want to look like a typical member.) Anyway, in my title, fat is a description. That's all. Hopefully it won't be a description for much longer.

OK, but there's a bit more. Over the years, I've grown weary of the many ways in which overweight people (I'm talking about more than twenty pounds, mind you) are actually limited in their attempts to become fitter. Sure, yes, nutrition/diet is important. But so is activity. But what happens when we want to become active? Obstacle after obstacle.

Are you overweight and want to hike or run? Good luck finding technical clothing that fits. No, it's not impossible, but it sure is difficult. Cycling is nearly as bad, but thankfully there's Team Estrogen for plus-sized cycling apparel. Want to swim for exercise? Ha! Good luck finding a suit which has shoulder straps which won't roll off your shoulders halfway down the pool. (After a great deal of searching, I finally found a fantastic plus-size Speedo suit.)

If you lament the severe lack of fitness wear for overweight people, "normal"-sized people look at you funny. "Why on earth would they make activewear for fatties?" they ask. Well, duh, if we can't dress ourselves, how the hell are we supposed to start exercising for weight loss?!?

It's even worse if you start listening to some of the "experts" about what overweight people are supposed to do to lose weight. Putting aside the ridiculous low-calorie diets that doctors and nutritionists will push (I've mentioned before how those are cruel recipes for disaster), what do they say for weight loss? Walk. Walk, walk, walk, walk, and walk. And watch your heart rate - don't let it get above 70% of your maximum, fattie!

ARGH! Now, don't get me wrong, if you like walking, good for you. Personally, it bores me to tears. And if I had to stay below 70% of my calculated maximum? I think I'd die. Even 80% is ridiculously low for me. If I want to be active, I want to feel like I'm doing something! I want to breathe hard, I want to need to recover, I want to "suffer" from the exquisite pain of soreness the day after. I want to train like an athlete.

And why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't any fat person? Why, indeed, must anyone wait "until I lose this forty, fifty, or hundred pounds" before embarking into athleticism? I think that anyone who suggests that an overweight person "wait until" a certain weight before running or lifting weights or any kind of movement that that overweight person wants to do is doing an grave disservice.
Now, am I saying that someone who is carrying around an extra hundred or more pounds should go out and try to run a marathon just like that? Heavens, no. They need to train responsibly and push themselves just to their current limits. Similarly, the 110-pound weakling who's been playing video games and living off of Mountain Dew and Cheetos every day for the past year should respect his (or her) current limits and train responsibly.

But just because one is fat, doesn't mean that one can't train like an athlete. Fat athlete. It's not a contradiction, and it's not an insult. It just is.

OK, so now that we've covered the history of the name of the blog, it seems appropriate to touch on the future of the name of this blog. I think that some of the reactions out there (aghast comes to mind) are because people think it's limiting. It's as if they believe that I've decided that there's never a time I won't be fat. Considering the flaws in BMI, perhaps I always will be considered fat. But if it means I look like this, or this, or even this, I'm perfectly OK with it. (Note: I know that the last two take a great, great deal of dedication in the weight room, more than I'd probably ever give.) Side note, what would I want to look like if I could pick any body? Dear Gods, it would be something like this:

(Photo source: Vanity Fair Exhibit, Hilary Swank by Norman Jean Roy, 2004)

Now, surely, genetics makes this little more than fantasy for me, as does the damage I have done to my skin over the years (stretch marks, excess subcutaneous fat cells, etc). But that doesn't mean that I should waver from my resolve to change my body into something much closer to my ideal. But, again, I digress.

However, the question that remains is... What happens when I'm no longer "fat"? Do I keep the title as an ironic homage to whence I came? Do I change it to "(Formerly) Fat Athlete"? Do I change it to "Phat Athlete"? I don't know, and I don't think I need to decide any time soon. But I do know this: The title is not meant as deprecation. It's funny. Better still, it does serve as a challenge against assumptions and, I hope, occasional inspiration. Most importantly: If anything keeps me from attaining my goal(s), it most certainly won't be the name of this blog.

A Dose of My Own Medicine

2009-06-16T10:01:00.001-07:00

I haven't vented for a while. I'm due.

In various places, at various times, I've repeated a few related mantras. It's all about the math. Watch the trends, not the numbers. Be patient.

But, and you may be shocked to hear this, I am not perfect. Although I know my mantras to be spot on, well, sometimes they're just not "enough". You start to question things, wondering whether the assumptions you're working with are correct. Do I really have my correct BMR? Do I burn as much as I think I do when working out? Am I eating in my sleep?!?

It's all about the math.
Watch the trends, not the numbers.
Be patient.

To understand my frustration, let's look at the raw data. Sure, I'm out of school so I'm a bit more sedentary than normal. That's why I set my "metabolism" in FitDay to, well, sedentary instead of "seated, some movement". That's shaving nearly 600 Calories off of my calculated BMR. So, of course, I'm upping the exercise. For the past nearly two weeks, I've burned an average of nearly 800 Calories more than I've consumed. So, my weight loss should be continuing as it always has. But let's look at the raw data.

June 6: 194.6 (hadn't been following the program faithfully because of end-of-school stuff)
June 7: 193
June 8: 193
June 9: 193.8
June 10: 194
June 11: 194.8
June 12 194.8
June 13: 194.6
June 14: 194.8 (mega exercise day - burned about 2,000 more than I ate)
June 15: 194.2 (ok...)
Today: 194.8 (argh!)

It's all about the math.
Watch the trends, not the numbers.
Be patient.

Not helping. Not "enough".

Maybe it's time for a free day. Those tend to help me break plateaus. But, but... I don't want to possibly derail the work I've been doing. I want to charge forward, get as much progress as possible for the summer!

Perhaps I need to cut calories a bit. Maybe I burned more at work than I think. Seriously? Well, maybe. Yelling at kids all day long sure gets the heart rate up. (I joke, I joke. I don't yell at the kids. Much. But they are middle schoolers, so, you know.) So, then, what? Cut calories?

It's all about the math.
Watch the trends, not the numbers.
Be patient.

Still not "enough".

So, I look away from the raw data (which I should't even be looking at, but I do) and review the trends. Weightbot (iphone) tells me I'm losing weight so slowly that it'll take 398 more days to lose 40 pounds. OK, but weightbot really doesn't have a good averaging system. (And, still, according to weightbot, I am losing weight, albeit at the pace of a turtle's funeral procession.) Let's look at the better system: physicsdiet:

The one above is my 30-day progress. See the big red spike? That's what happened when I completely blew off diet and exercise for a few days and engaged in some celebratory stuff at work. My planned maintenance is actually the level line right before the big spike. But still, what does it tell me? I'm losing about 1.17 pounds per week with a calculated deficit of nearly 600 Calories. OK. But that's for thirty days. What about just the past two weeks?

Um, OK. Still trending downward. Even better with an average weekly loss of 1.71 pounds and a calculated deficit of over 800 Calories. Actually, that's pretty on par with what I've been doing. OK, OK, but what about just this week? Certainly I've flatlined for the last week, right? Or, perish the thought, reversed the trend?

Seriously, thank goodness for math. You see, I'd be looking at the bottom of the graph, the data points, and be convinced that I'm gaining weight. But math takes other data into account and reassures me that, even just during this week, I'm losing weight. Sure, only 1.05 pounds per week, but I'm losing, it assures me.

I'm having a hard time buying it.

It's all about the math.
Watch the trends, not the numbers.
Be patient.

I'm trying. I really am. I mean, consider some things. I've (re)started weight training and am pushing myself with tough cardio. Muscle is denser than fat, so that would explain a lack of weight loss. I've started supplementing with BCAAs, which can help with ideal body recomp. That means that I may be reducing muscle catabolism (using muscle for energy rather than just fat) and building muscle enough to look like a plateau. But, it could be any of the less ideal things listed above.

It's all about the math.
Watch the trends, not the numbers.
Be patient.

So, yes. Patience is a virtue. And necessary. But difficult. Sometimes near-impossible. But not actually impossible.

So, I'll stay the course. Give it a few more weeks before I scream in frustration. If nothing else, even if my weight is staying the same, my fitness is improving, so it's not like I'm wasting my summer opportunity.

Honestly, I don't like the taste of my own medicine, but I'll swallow it. Anything else would be madness.

Gravity is Losing its Grip

2009-06-15T18:11:00.001-07:00

I have long joked that I'm very gravity-bound. Let's face it, enough normal weight people avoid hills. Suggest that they strap on an extra fifty or so pounds and fight the hill and they'd laugh themselves silly. And yet, that's the world I currently live in. So, yes, I am very gravity-bound.

Nevertheless, I went out for a fairly hilly ride yesterday. I modified a ride listed on the local bike club's website so that I would start and stop at my home. The good news is that I had plenty of options to cut the ride short if needed. At the same time, starting from home causes a problem.

You see, I live on the side of a mountain, so to speak. That means that, when leaving from home, I have two options: Go screaming downhill and hope I'll make it back up, or push it uphill a little and then putz about the rolling valleys, still having to deal with some uphill before making it back home.

The original ride works it out perfectly: Work slowly uphill, putz about in the valleys, then cruise leisurely back down to the start.

Why, oh why, couldn't I live in the valley? (Ironically, the North Valleys are all higher than Reno proper, and somehow that's not a valley. Too bad, I'll call a spade a spade and Reno a valley.)

Ultimately, however, living on the side of a mountain/hill can become a positive as it forces me to work harder at the end of a ride. See? I can make lemonade when need be.

I wouldn't have even attempted this if it weren't for the fact that a while ago I got brave and proved to myself that I could make it back up the big hill down into the valley. This tested my bravery so much that I had to break it up into pieces. I went down a third, I went back up a third. Survival check? Clear. So I went down two thirds, and came back up the two thirds. Still breathing? Yep. Resolved, I went down the whole thing and came back up the whole thing. I was tired, I was worn out, and I was proud. My father, honestly, was surprised at my accomplishment and stated, "Hmph. You're in better shape than I thought." (That's his way of saying he's proud. He's German. That's as good as it gets.)

Sidenote: This is the hill that reduced an out-of-shape, under-prepared, and ill-equipped (bike-wise) me to tears. Literally. I was bawling like a little girl who lost her mommy at Disneyland by the time I got home. (Note that the plan was to take the bus once I was "done", but that plan failed miserably, forcing me to walk/ride the whole way.)

Back to the point. This planned route would take me uphill a bit, then out East, which guaranteed, no matter how I sliced it, that I would have to trudge back uphill to get home.

Have I mentioned that I'm very gravity-bound?

Nevertheless, I had escape plans. Plenty of options for cutting the ride short.

So, I trudge out. Honestly, from the very beginning, I'm wondering if I'm just going to cut this planned ride, guessed to be 25-30 miles, down to an easier ten. I'm tired. The littler hills are already getting to me. I finish the loop around the valleys north of me, about a ten-mile loop, and then I stop here:

This is the view down the gentle, sloping hill I just finished climbing. That quick left you see? That leads quickly back home. I had a decision to make: Go back home, or face this:

You see where it looks like the road (world) drops off? It does. It's not the going down that worries me; it's the coming back up, albeit elsewhere. I've actually climbed that particular hill and it's a bear. But it's screaming fun to go down.

So I do.

Cursing my insanity the whole bloody fun way down.

I'm going to pay for this, I tell myself. What am I thinking? I ask myself.

Screaming down the curvy hill at about 35 mph, I don't have any responses other than, "Wheeeeeee!"

So I make it down the hill and am now in the valley east of my home. To get back, I have to do some climbing, but nothing I've never done before. Decision number two: Take the shorter, known way back, or go forward into the unknown?

Surprising myself, I go forward. I'm somewhat reassured because I have to do some climbing again. This, I reason, is a good sign. See, I reassure myself, I'm not digging myself into anything I can't handle.

And then the road (world) drops off again.

Now, screaming down a much longer descent (both in altitude drop and length), I peak out at only 29 mph. This gives me a little more brain power to think with. I wonder to myself, How much will a cab cost to come drive me out of this hole I'm dropping myself into? Luckily, I didn't complete the math for an answer, or I might have begun literally screaming.

So now, I've made it into the next valley. This ride will be quite an accomplishment, I think to myself. Now I just need to go south through the valley, then back across and fight the long climb home. I wonder how much climbing I'll have to go to get out of this valley. Then I realize that I'm still going downhill. Gently, yes, but still downhill.

This, I realize, does not bode well.

I hit the bottom of the valley, finally, and it's all straight uphill back home. Sure, there are a few little downhills to act as reprieves, but somehow there's always a red light waiting for me any time I gain any momentum. True story. Every single time. Ugh.

I don't realize it until I look at the data after arriving home, but I've effectly doubled the distance and climb of "my" hill. That's a heck of a lot of climbing (for me).

On one of the little peaks, I take a quick break to finish off my clif shot bloks and survey the area. Don't get me wrong, but this picture sums up a lot of Reno to me.

A Wal-mart in the lower right corner. Downtown with casinos in about the center. Beautiful mountains and gorgeous blue sky above. The clouds are somewhat unusual for Reno, but what are you going to do?

Oh, just for the fun of it, here's a shot of what I love about Reno. This was in the farthest valley, just before I realized that I was still going downhill.

What a beautiful green valley. There are, most certainly, gorgeous parts of Reno. (Despite what many tourists, never stepping foot out of the casinos, think.)

So, anyway, I made it home. On my bike. The whole way. No tears, no cab ride, not even any walking.

I'm damned proud of myself.

Here are pictures of the route and the elevation profile.

Yes, some riders eat this type of route for breakfast; however this is, undoubtedly, the hardest ride I have completed in my adult life. And I completed it! Gravity is definitely losing its grip.

Better Late than Never (According to Some, at Least)

2009-06-13T20:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry to the millions of you who flocked to this site yesterday, clinging desperately to the promise of more graphs. I have failed you. My deepest regrets.

Um, yeah. Moving on. In fact, I'll even suggest that most of you will probably want to quickly click away from this post before you get sucked into the vortex of pointless data. You have been warned.

Still here? Okiedokie. Good for you. So, I ran with my newest toy, the footpod, yesterday and today. Here's a picture of it on my newer and shinier running shoes.

If you look at the size, you might think that it would get annoying. The truth is that it attaches so securely, and is so light, that one forgets about it almost immediately. It virtually "disappears" as far as I'm concerned. It has two parts, one for underneath the laces, and they clip together very easily and eliminate any flopping. The ease of clipping and unclipping is important for me, as I rotate shoes. (That's one of those things I once heard "real" runners do, so I was quick to adopt it. The truth is that it really does seem to keep the shoes fresher, so don't sniff at the idea. Get it? Huh? Huh? Ah, well, sometimes the jokes really are just for me.)

So, what did the footpod tell me? Actually, I'm somewhat surprised. My cadence when running really isn't all that bad. Again, not great, but not awful. An ideal running cadence is 85-95, depending on whom you ask). When I'm running along, it's in the low eighties. Humph. Have I mentioned that I'm surprised? Well, I am.

Actually, I can't take credit for the cadence. I select music by BPM, and I've been slowly raising the BPM of my running music. So it's a bit of an artificial cadence. I'll have to run without music one day to see what I do without music to "march" to.

At long last, here are some graphs for your viewing pleasure:

This is my average cadence per split. I worked intervals today. The six highest cadence spots are me running hard work intervals. The slightly lower cadences are when I switched to a slower run. This is somewhat problematic because it shows that I'm using a higher cadence to speed up rather than a longer stride. Then again, I'm enough of a beginner that this should probably be at the bottom of the list of things to care about.

Higher on the list of things to care about is my heartrate, so here are two HR graphs. The first is average per split, and the second is by time.

I was working Lactate Threshold intervals (zone 5a). The weird thing is that, when looking at the average per split, I was almost never in my targeted HR zone for work intervals, and was frequently too low. When looking at the graph by time, you see that I quickly overshot zone 5a, and then had to work to get my HR slightly lower into the desired zone. Now, it may be worth noting that this HR zone has a range of four BPM, so I'm actually impressed by my control.

I think what's coolest about working with a heartrate monitor, and what many might find counterintuitive, is that it helps me get in touch with my body. You see, when I was running with the couch to 5k plan, I'd run when it said run and walk when it said walk. It didn't matter if it felt like I was going to pass out during the run intervals; I had to finish my running time. I pushed my body hard and I was going to survive even if it screamed for reprieve. And that's what running became: survival despite anything my body was telling me.

But now, I notice when I'm breathing slightly hard, very hard, or not hard enough. I frequently realize that I should slow down before my Garmin has a chance to tell me to slow down. I'm not quite as good at realizing when I should pick it back up, but maybe that's because I'm enjoying the easier work. Really, I'm finally learning to listen and respond to my body's signals.

I imagine the cadence sensor will do the same for me later; I'll recognize when I'm running at a proper cadence for the flats, uphill, or downhill. It'll get to a point where the footpod provides confirmation of what I already know rather than telling me anything new.

Funny, you'd think that a gadget would actually shut me off from body awareness, but the reverse is true. So, who cares if I don't really "need" these gadgets; they're helping make running so much more enjoyable for me. Really, isn't that the most important part?

Whew! Done and Done. (And Graphs!)

2009-06-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

My two goals for the day: A ride or a hike, and weight training (modified). Both met.

The ride was fairly smooth. I went out with the intention of completing an easy ride and selected a non-hilly route near my gym. The first half happened to be (slightly) uphill and against a headwind. It was an in-and-out, so the second half (amazingly enough) was downhill and benefitting from a tailwind. I am a genius. Really, it was the perfect ride for still-recovering quads.

So this seems like a good time to describe a couple of my new toys. First, I bought a Garmin Forerunner 405 cx. I'll do a complete review comparing it to the 305 later, when I've had more time to play with it. For now, I have mixed opinions. But I'm sticking with it for the pure love of more accurate caloric burns (based on heartrate changes - yay!).

Since I was shelling out money for a new GPS/HR monitor, it seemed only fitting that I should keep the blood flowing from my wallet and get some accessories. (What, isn't that how you budget?) So I bought two more toys. The first is the bicycle cadence sensor. Why? I don't know. But now I can confirm that I'm pedaling at a decent (not perfect) cadence. Why do I need to confirm that? I don't know that either. But I do know one thing: New graphs! Sqeeeeeee!

Ahem. Sorry. What does this graph tell me? Beats me. But it's green. And a bar graph. Actually, I know a little more. This is a bar graph for average cadence of one-mile splits. My cadence is a little low. That's not good. (But not awful, either.) It was higher when I was going uphill and against the wind, so it shows that I'm not trying to power through challenges. That's good. Most importantly, it's more data for me to crunch. That's always good. Right? Right? Right? Um, ok. Moving on.

My other toy is a foot pod for my Garmin. That does a couple of things. One, it will give me a running cadence. This, I know, I need to work on. My running cadence is pretty low. I won't say that I'm a "bounder", but I do know that I'm wasting energy. I just got it today, so I haven't had a chance to try it out. However, you can definitely expect more graphs tomorrow. Wait, maybe I shouldn't have told you that. The other thing it'll do is let me get more accurate distance and speed information when gps is weak or indoors on the treadmill. Yes, really. Treadmills are notorously awful for speed and distance, so this is a good thing. If not exactly vital. Oh well.

But, here's the coup de grâce: You can now go to Garmin Connect and see some of my activities in graphic detail. Why would you want to do that? I don't know. What's with all the questions today, anyway? But if you have some sort of sick curiosity, you can go here and see today's ride. You can see the map, and play with the data for yourself. The problem with Garmin Connect is that I can't turn off the maps without making the whole thing private, so most of my activities will likely be private. (Call me paranoid, but I'd rather not let the world know where my front doorsteps are.)

Whew! It's been a dataful day. (Get it? Ha!)

Oh, I almost forgot the best part! I was just looking at my HR data at the Garmin Connect site (yes, again...) and wondering why it got higher for the latter part of my ride. Oh, yeah. I was racing(ish)! Yep, on my solo ride, I was racing to catch up with the Garmin's virtual partner. He was beating the pants off me in the beginning (of course), and I was hoping to catch up at the end. I had set him at a fairly slow speed. I did catch up, but lost him in the end again. Ultimately, he beat me by fourteen seconds. Dernit. But I'll give Garmin credit: the virtual partner can be motivating. This did exist on older Garmins, and I'm sort of surprised that I had never used that feature before. I'll be sure to use it more frequently. Just wait until I start using the courses to race against myself.

Ugh. (But with a Promise)

2009-06-10T21:09:00.000-07:00

Today was a bleh day. My quads are killing me. It's official that I fried them with the squats/lunges on Monday and then completely burned them with yesterday's run. (So much for aiding recovery.) I've done the foam roller thing a few times, but it's not helping as much as normal. I'm still walking funny, or feel like I am, and I'm having problems getting up and down. The biggest sign that I'm in trouble: I'm wishing that we had a handrail for our whopping three steps out our front door. I'm surely a sight hobbling up and down our front steps. (I'm pretty sure I saw the older gentleman walking his little dog past our house chuckling when he saw me.)

So, anyway, I took today off, despite how much the road was calling to me and my bike (and my new cadence sensor - yay!). Sadly, my appetite did not take the day off. I had a weird afternoon "binge". No explanation, no excuses. Let's just say that I got in enough carbs that I should have plenty of energy tomorrow. For whatever I do... so I'd better do something.

But I highly doubt that my legs will have recovered enough by tomorrow to do my planned strength training. I am optimistic that I might be able to get in either a hike or an easy ride (or maybe a swim) tomorrow, but lunges and squats are out. So is, I believe, running. Um, yeah.

Nevertheless, I've made a promise to myself: Even if my legs are still aching tomorrow, I'll still hit the weight room at the gym. Just because my legs are off the hook doesn't mean I can't do upper body and core work. The legs will just skip a session. No biggie. I've made a commitment to strength training twice weekly, and I'll do the best I can to maintain it.

Do I get a gold star now?

Wait, even better: Will you just promise me that if you happen to see an overweight woman gingerly lowering herself with both hands onto the weight benches tomorrow... you won't laugh. At least not out loud. OK, at least not louder than the music in her (my) headphones. That's reasonable, right? Right.

The Spirit Was Willing, but the Flesh Knew Better

2009-06-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

Boy, did I have a bright idea today. Sure, my legs were a little sore from yesterday, but not too bad. (Despite predictions, I was not infirmed.) I decided that I should go on my scheduled run today and, really, that should help with healing, right? Nevermind that today's scheduled run is my first attempt at a harder interval run (sub lactate threshold, for those remotely interested). I'll be fine, right? Right.

Add to that the fact that I overdressed. Fifty-eight degrees on a sunny day does not call for a long-sleeve top and knickers. What was I thinking?

So, here I will narrate the conversation between the spirit (willing) and the flesh (worn-out).

Scene: A few yards into the run.

Flesh: Um, you're kidding, right?

Spirit: No. This'll be great! Just what the ol' legs need!

You think so? And what the heck is this? You call this a warm-up?

Um, yeah. The warm-up needs some adjusting with the new HR zones. Don't worry, we'll be fine. Just take it easy until the legs loosen up.

Loosen up? You think it's going to get better than this? If you haven't noticed, we're in pain here.

I noticed. I'm waiting for that to go away. Hey, listen to that beeping. Time to run our first work interval! It's faster than we're used to going, eh?

Ow. OK, it's a fairly short interval. We can work with this. But not for long.

Ah, that's the spirit. Wow, this is a bit harder than our previous runs, eh? But that's great! This will be a great way to improve even faster.

Um, yeah. Whatever. Is the six minutes up yet?

Just... about... now. Whew! OK, now we rest for a minute and a half. This time we'll walk, but eventually we should be doing slow jogs for our rest intervals. Wow, that went fast, didn't it? OK, here we go!

Wait, what? Again?!? You've lost your bloody mind, you know that? Once was enough, but twice?!?

Watch the attitude, flesh. You just do as you're told, and we'll fight through this together. We'll be fine. We did the first interval, we're going to do the second, and then we're at the halfway point.

OK, now I'm done listening to you. I'll let you finish this one, but after that, we're through.

Oh, come on. Where's your spirit? Oh, yeah, that's me. Um... Where's your determination? If we want to get better, we have to work hard. Whew. Is it hot out here, or is it just me?

Yes, it's hot. That's why we're dripping wet. Small clue. Here's another clue.

Ow! That hurts!

Yeah. That's my clue that we're done running. D.O.N.E. Done.

OK, fine. We'll walk the third interval and get back at it for the fourth.

[snicker]

What was that?

Um, nothing. Carry on.

OK, hear that beep? That's our signal! Let's finish strong!

I finished quite some time ago.

Please?

No. Listen, you're lucky I'm letting you make it home without calling for help. And just so you remember who's really in charge here, we're going to walk like a 95-year-old woman for the rest of the day. We're going to have to use the sink and bathtub to support ourselves as we get on and off the "potty". Seriously. We need to rest these legs. You may know determination, spirit, but I know toast. And that's what these legs are: crispy, burnt toast.

True story.

Whew! I Did It.

2009-06-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

I finally went to the gym... for some weight training. It was clear that my "bodyweight only" routine wasn't getting me anywhere. Not because it wasn't valid, mind you, but because... I never did it. (Funny how that works.)

Of course, the fact that it's summer break (yay!) isn't hurting. I've committed to a twice-weekly full body routine, completed in paired super-sets (gotta keep that heart rate up). The plan is that, a little more than two months from now, I can maintain any gains (and, ideally, continue to make some progress) with a once-weekly routine. (Of course, the routine may not stay exactly the same as it is now. But that's neither here nor there.)

Only two problems: First, I completely overestimated my ability to do dumbbell squats. And lunges. Egads! I may be bedridden tomorrow. Second, I'm a bit less sure of my ability to maintain proper form. I'm not sure why I was so confident in the past and am suddenly so much less confident. If my lack of confidence continues, there's always the option to have a few sessions with a personal trainer. It just seems like that's something I should save for fine-tuning further down the road. Bah, who knows.

Anyway, the point is that I finally lifted, pushed, and pulled some metal plates. I'm dreading tomorrow's DOMS. And I'm tired. But, most importantly, I'm feeling good.

My Training Plan is Going Well, So Now...

2009-06-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

Yep, you got it. After I just posted a lengthy description of all the evidence that my current training program has been working... I'm about to change it up. Before you begin berating me for messing with a good thing, do note a couple of things:

Changes in training are relatively minor adjustments - fine tuning, if you will
Changes in names and labels of zones are a bit more significant

Why change things? Well, I just finished Total Heart Rate Training, by Joe Friel. It, like another book I have (which was a too-technical monster I just could not bring myself to finish), pushes training zones by Lactate Threshold (LT) rather than maximum heart rate (MHR).

Let me back up a moment. I noticed quite some time ago that the standard percentages of MHR just never worked for me. My HR would shoot up and stay relatively high, even when I wasn't feeling very taxed. Although it would drop back quickly, my HR even during "recovery" or even walking periods was "too high" according to those charts. Seriously, if I followed the standard MHR percentages, I don't believe I'd ever have gained any fitness; I'd still be walking slowly, frustrated, and wondering why I can't keep my HR down. I don't think it's because I was that out of shape; I believe it was because the MHR percentage guidelines are bunk. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure they work for some people. They just don't work for all people.

When I discovered how to calculate training zones by the heart rate reserve (HRR) using the Karvonen formula, I was relieved. This made much more sense for me. The zones fit much better with my rating of perceived exertion (RPE) levels. Not perfectly, but better.

But even sites which explained the HRR kept mentioning that LT training was superior. Fine, I'm sold. But first. there was the problem of the book I couldn't finish. And then, even after finishing Friel's easier-to-read book, I couldn't bring myself to go through any of the tests "necessary" to approximate my LT. (Yeah, yeah, it's simple enough. But whatever.) Nor could I bring myself to pay the money for a real LT test. Come on, now.

But then, Friel mentioned the correlation between an RPE of 7 and LT. Additionally, there's a switch in breathing (ventilatory threshold (VT)) which strongly correlates as well. I thought back to my runs, particularly my end-of-the-run sprints, and it clicked: I can really approximate my LT now. I used today's sprint to confirm/adjust my approximation.

So here it is: 171, give or take one bpm. If I follow the table down and look at the purposes and descriptions of the various zones, it all clicks exceptionally well. Some adjustments may have to be made, but I think I've got a good starting point here for training by LT.

So, yes, I am changing the game plan mid-stride. But I was just about to add in interval training anyway, and I'm sure the benefits outweigh any costs/risks of messing with a good thing. I'll post updates when appropriate. (That's a good thing, right? Right? Don't answer that.)

Running Update

2009-06-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't talked about my running progress in quite some time. I started training with HRR zones back in February, and gave an early assessmet in March. (Warning: Both posts would work well as sleep inductors, so click with caution.) Also, for those not following along closely, I should probably mention that the 5k I was training for back then was cancelled. I didn't flake. Really.)

So, anyway, I guess it's about time I re-updated. The "ok" news: I still take walk breaks during my zone 3 runs. But I still do much better than I did a few months ago. Here are some charts for comparison. (Have I mentioned how much I love data? Particularly in graphic form? Mmmmm... data....) Anyway, the important part is what's above and below the dashed line. Above is walking; below is jogging.

Here's early March:

Here's late May:

So, you can see a few things are happening. First, I'm stopping much less to walk. Secondly, the stops are much briefer. Thirdly, I tend to hit higher running paces without much more effort. (It actually looks like, if I would just learn to slow down a bit, I might just be able to do a zone 3 base run without walking. But I've tried and it doesn't seem to work. Yet.)

On to the better news. My zone 4 "tempo" runs. (Yeah, yeah, these aren't really tempo runs, per se, but play along, will ya?) Now, this might be a little misleading, so you want to pay attention to the times. The first graph is a 16 minute tempo run. The second, from today, is a 24 minute tempo run. Also, and this is important, any time I had to walk on a tempo run means that I couldn't keep my heart rate out of zone 5. I was red-lining, as some might say. Today, I stuck pretty easily in the middle of zone 4, except for my "sprint" at the end.

March 5:

June 5 (today):

Isn't it pretty? OK, maybe you don't appreciate graphs quite as much as me, and that's OK. But trust me, it's pretty. Really. Oh, just a little bit more data: That 16-minute tempo run? The run portion was run at a 12:38/mile average pace. Today? 12:03, baby.

Do you think it's time to add some interval or fartlek training? Yeah, me too.

A Letter to Future Me (and Maybe Some of You)

2009-06-01T20:48:00.001-07:00

I have a friend who has been fighting a similar battle with weight. She's much closer to her target than I am, and she's becoming disheartened by the sagginess that she's now facing. Her body, like mine, is not that of a twenty-year-old, and doesn't simply "snap back" the way she wishes it would. (Would it even snap back so much at twenty? I don't even know, but let's not get on this tangent now...)

The encouragement I gave to give her skin/body a year to tighten was no consolation to her. She wants the tight body she's working for, and she wants it now. The reality that she may never get that body without surgery looms over her. I can't say as I blame her for her frustrations. There are times already when I'm lying in bed and wondering if the squooshy parts of me will simply become floppier squooshy parts of me... and how I'll feel about that. Sorry if that's too much detail, but it is what it is.

But, at the same time, is the alternative any better? I think the answer is very clear. At least, it is clear when we're thinking, um, clearly. (I may need a thesaurus.) I wonder if I'll soon be where she is now, wondering whether all the work for a thinner-but-flabbier body is worth it. So, while I'm here at a sort of mid-point, I'm going to write a preemptive letter to that doubting self. If and when I reach that cloudy point where I wonder if well-fed flab isn't better than well-worked sag, I hope to return here and regain clarity.

Dear Skinny Me:

If you're reading this, you're likely struggling with some floppy bits. Here are some things to consider before diving into that pint of Chocolate Haagen Dazs.

How many things are you doing right now that you'd never have done before? Back in May, you went kayaking. Without hesitating. Struck that off your life list, right? Would you have done that at 250? How many other things are you doing now that you'd never have done "back then"? How much did you let your weight limit you? Remember, that was what this truly was all about. It wasn't how you looked in a bathing suit so much as it was about whether or not you were willing to go swimming in public. Your weight stopped you from living the life you wanted to live. How about now?

How heavily are you breathing at the top of the stairs? Oh, not at all? Pretty nice, right? How are you enjoying those hikes? Nice views, nice company, right? Can you strap on an extra 80-100 pounds (on top of your 35 poun backpack) and do the same hike? Bummer. It's not just about self-confidence, it's about fitness. Your weight held you back in more ways than one.

How much is any flabbiness bothering you with any of the above? Didn't think so. Listen, you knew you weren't going to be a supermodel at any weight. That ship sailed a long time ago... if it was even ever in this hemisphere. You may not love how you look nekkid right now, but you've got near-nekkid pictures you can pull out for some comparisons. Is that huge belly really better than the floppy tummy? How about those calves? See how the skin is so tight it looks like it's about to burst? Don't you like your shapely calves better right now? What about those extra chins? (Are you kidding?!?) Has it been a year since you hit goal? If not, then give it time. Your body may surprise you. And even if it has been a year, see above.

Now, forget how you look. Is this even about that? Sure, it's a bonus, but it's not The Main Thing. The main thing is your health. Seriously. You know that. Remember those overweight people who had to use scooters primarily due to their weight and related problems? You were headed down that path. Sure, you could do a lot at 250... and 37 years old. How long do you think that was going to last? It wasn't and you know it. The high blood pressure was a gentle warning. What was going to happen next? But now where are you headed? Rather than spending the last ten to twenty years of your life sitting around in constant discomfort, pain, and weakness you're going to have the health and vitality to travel and truly enjoy your retirement. That's huge.

Darn it, just look at your accomplishments! You've done things even you weren't sure you would ever accomplish! And now you're wondering whether it was worth it? Let me tell you, from here at the midpoint, it is. You know it is.

Now go for a run.

A Touch of Inspiration

2009-06-01T15:56:00.001-07:00

I don't have anything fantastic to say today, but I thought I'd share something I found on i can read a while ago. It makes me smile and, somehow, makes me feel my humility while reminding me of my potential. I hope it does the same for you.

(via allposters via i can read)

Pressing Play

2009-05-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

For the past week, I've allowed myself to eat right around maintenance. My body has responded in exactly the expected manner: I've flatlined. Actually, I'm impressed with just about how perfectly I've flatlined. My daily weight on the scale doesn't even have the expected water-weight fluctuation. How bizarre is that?

Now, while some people may think this flatline is a bad thing, I think it's perfect. It shows that the math I've been using is right on. It also shows that my relationship with food is becoming much improved. Despite being more relaxed with my nutrition, I haven't been overeating or bingeing. (And I haven't been eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for breakfast...) Overall, it's been a great experiment. And I think it's been a good break for my body, as well.

So, I've had the weight loss on pause for a week now. That's enough. Today I press play and continue on.

Of Optimism and Clothing

2009-05-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

When you're losing a significant amount of weight, clothing becomes an issue. Some people, like me, may begin with a closet bursting with too-small clothing, so at least you have a few things that fit as you shrink. (You may know how it goes. If you gain weight and it stops fitting, you can't bear to get rid of it. If you lose weight and stops fitting, you can't wait to get rid of it.)

Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Some time ago I called a local charity to pick up a donation. The donated items had been steadily collecting in my hallway as I would try on outfits and "disgustedly" have to toss items on the charity pile because they were too baggy. Here's a picture:

Isn't it purty? You can't tell by the photo, but there were come cute tops and skirts in that pile. But that's OK. I don't really miss them. (Would you?) I'm not even sad that I've "had to" start another charity pile. It's tiny now, but it'll grow.

OK, back to my point. Again, clothing becomes an issue when you have a lot to lose. Part of the problem is that you don't know how much you want to invest in clothes that fit you at your current (temporary) size. What to do? You certainly can't keep wearing the old baggy clothes. Baggy clothes don't tell the world that you're losing weight; they tell the world that you don't know how to dress yourself. So you have to do something.

Shopping in a local store is one option, but you may recall that an anonymous friend/coworker/sweetiepie left me a hint by way of a business card for a tailor. Yes, I took some of my better items to a tailor and got them adjusted. I made a mistake, though. I didn't point out that I planned on continuing the weight loss. Cut to a few days ago when I, for the first time, put on one of the skirts that I had adjusted. It was already too loose. Oh, sweet irony. So, learn from me: If you're in my position, be sure to tell the tailor to resize tight. Otherwise you're just throwing away money. (But don't worry if you make this mistake. You can't get too angry about it, now can you? I know I couldn't.)

Even shopping in a local store is problematic. You buy something that fits perfectly... two weeks later it's just a tiny bit too big. Oh, the local charities are going to love me for the barely-worn clothes they'll soon receive.

Another option, of course, is shopping online. But this opened the door for a different problem. Things were on sale recently, but here's where you run into trouble with different brands (particularly with athletic wear, which was all I was buying). I may be 1X or XL in some styles, but I'm still to big for most of the XL sportswear that I just bought. Sigh. (Cute stuff, too.) But that's OK, I'll shrink into them. I've got time. And at least I now have some more "Ooh, it finally fits!" clothing to celebrate later.

However, with summer break nearly here, I'll be darned if I buy any "real" clothes. I'll look like I can't dress myself if I have to; I'm OK with it. I've got two and a half months to save up and prepare for some massive shopping in the fall. That's going to be fun. But I'll still have to be careful. The journey still won't be over by then. What a perplexingly delightful problem to have.

Second Weight Goal Down. And Now?

2009-05-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

Finally hit 199 (averaged) today. Whew. The last few ounces felt like forever. Next target: 174. Why 174? Because at 174 I am officially "overweight" rather than obese. Yeah, that's according to the BMI charts which I don't quite agree with, but let's face it: I don't believe in the Easter Bunny but I still eat confections shaped like long-eared rodents and their off-species offspring, right?

Wish me luck. Ha! No, don't do that. If you're going to wish me anything, wish me joy. I'm sure I'll find it without your wishes, but it'll be a nice thought anyway.

Cycling Lesson #781

2009-05-17T19:49:00.001-07:00

Went on a nice ride today in the "valleys" around my home. This means I was facing some rolling hills, but I was ready. To my surprise, the hills really weren't getting to me. Sure, I had to work, but I wasn't struggling as much as I expected. (I was also trying to practice something I just read about: a sort of zen feeling of letting the hill come to me rather than trying to force the climb.)

Things were going well. I then turned East and prepared for what I remembered to be a relatively long, slow climb. (It's been a few years since I went into that particular area.) To my surprise, it seeed to be mainly flat with a little downhill! Easier ride than I thought.

Then I looped back around.

Oh, my.

That mainly flat area with a little downhill actually had been uphill! For a moment I thought I'd really developed some great climbing stamina. Then reality sets in: The wind! The wind was pushing me up that hill.

You know what that means, right?

Yep, I had to really push it to go back downhill! That's got to be the most annoying thing in cycling, having to work hard to go downhill against a headwind.

Luckily, it got a little better when I turned back South, but not much.

So, lesson #781: If the ascent seems to easy to be true... be ready for a hard descent.

(I still had a blast.)

Deep Thoughts

2009-05-16T09:08:00.001-07:00

No Jack Handey thoughts here, but I feel the need to get some thoughts down. You may or may not know that I've been seeing a therapist to help me get a handle on whatever had been holding me back from continuing and maintaining weight loss.

The good news is that I don't feel like slowing down my weight loss at all right now. My reasonable destination (155) feels very much assured right now, and further destinations (145 or - maybe - 135) feel like strong possibilities, though I can't say until I get closer whether or not I even want to go that low.

The other (not really "bad") news is that some thoughts have been swirling around my head lately, that need some sorting. Or at least some venting. Since my "averaged" weight is right smack on 200.0 today, it seems an appropriate day to do so. Something about being on the verge of multiple breakthroughs; it's apt. Alright, on with the show.

First, I spent a few days last week in what I'll call a "middle school girl" mentality. I had spent a few hours with a guy friend and became a little delusional about it, imagining that he was interested in me romantically. (I'm 99.995% sure that he has zero interested in me.) But, more importantly, this brought me into a very weird place. I genuinely argued with myself for a while, and it really wasn't even about whether or not he was interested. It was about whether or not I was even worthy of his interest. Why the hell not? Indeed, why not. But I'm going to assume that I don't need to spell out my insecurities.

But here's where it gets icky. Part of me (delusionally) continues to think that there's a hope here. (Note that I'm not even asking myself whether or not I even am or should be interested in him.) Part of me thinks that I'm not even on his radar because I'm so far below his league. But am I? I really don't kow anymore. Maybe I'm not, so maybe there's an opportunity. But of course not. So, there we go. Around and around. Back and forth.

Have I kept myself overweight so that I don't even have to deal with this? So that I can brush off any possibility and not even worry about being vulnerable? I mean, really, it makes sense, doesn't it? Cloister yourself well enough, and you don't have to worry about rejection. And if someone happens to express interest despite your weight and semi-monkhood, then there's clearly something wrong with him, and you definitely don't want to get anywhere close to him! (I used to "joke" that if anyone had low enough standards to be interested in me... my standards were too high to be interested in him. That was a joke. Or so I convinced myself. How awful.)

Something similar is going on with simply trying to let myself develop a social life. Same self-imposed hermitage, same weird arguments with self. Well, they're slightly different. Now part of me argues that they spend time with me only because they feel sorry for me. (How insane is that part of me? How many people choose to spend time with people they don't like only out of pity? Come on!) But no matter how I try to rationally argue that, and how absolutely insane it sounds, that part of me remains convinced that few people want to be my friend.

And if I keep hiding myself away, that part of me can always feel justified that people don't like me. And the other part of me never has to deal with the possibility that that part is right. (How awful would that be?)

I don't remember quite what I said yesterday, but I was beginning to use the gym as an excuse to maintain my hermitage yesterday afternoon. They brushed it off, and then began reassuring me about my appearance and, really, general worthiness. Frak. Good intentions aside, that doesn't help. That just makes me realize that I'm putting out this unworthy, needy attitude, and that's the last thing I want.

(And, beyond that, I really did need to get to the gym. Yesterday makes the third consecutive day without exercising, and I genuinely do not want to get into the wrong pattern. But a social life is definitely needed. I'm tired of being a hermit.)

The good news is that I did stay, chated while they ate dinner (I ate a little earlier), and watched a movie with them. A good time in general. And the earth didn't crumble.

But I can't get those "voices" in my head to shut up. It gets tiresome; it really does. I really need to get this stuff worked out. My outside is very close to "normal". The inside needs to catch up.

198.2

2009-05-10T21:03:00.000-07:00

My "averaged" weight still needs to catch up, and I won't be surprised to see a higher number tomorrow, but this was my weight this morning. 198.2. So long, 200.

Yippie-kai-ay, mother....er.

Sanity Slowly Rears its Head

2009-05-09T07:49:00.001-07:00

Update on yesterday's post: I went to the tri's website to look at the times. You know, just to see last year's times. I figured it would probably take me about two hours (or just a little under) to do this particular triathlon.

The good news: It's all flat.

The better news: The slowest finish last year was about 2:20. I think I could beat that. (No 80-year-olds entered, though.)

But now... the bad news: 27 competitors last year.

Not everyone may understand this, but to be a fat(ish by then), slow athlete in a crowd is one thing. But to be one of 28 competitors? Oh, my. That may take much more courage than I can muster up by then.

I'm going to have to do quite a bit of thinking...

Doctor, I Think She's Losing It

2009-05-08T20:41:00.001-07:00

I don't know what deficiency this is a sign of (iron? zinc? brownie?), but I might be losing my mind. I got a flyer in the mail today from a local county parks & rec - they host the flat century ride that I'm planning to ride later this year. I opened it, expecting information on that ride.

It wasn't that, but they apprently have two other events to advertise. One is a 36 mile poker run (first ever for the area). Sounds interesting, and I might sign up. The other is a "sprint" triathlon. Swim 1/3 mile, bike 14 mles, run 5k. You know, I think to myself, I could do that one day. I look more closely, thinking, when is this, anyway?

August 15.

I might just be able to do that by then.

I must be losing my mind.

But I might be able to.

No, I wouldn't have a snowflake's chance in the Sahara of winning anything, but I could finish. Since age classes go up to 85, I might not even come in last.

By August... I could do this.

Son of a gun, am I ready to become a triathlete this year?

It's Official

2009-05-06T06:44:00.000-07:00

I have cheekbones. I should probably now stop using my blush to fake cheekbones. (I'm not sure where to apply it anymore!)

An Offering

2009-05-02T21:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I've been a bit quiet lately. It's not that I don't have anything to say; I'm just not prioitizing properly to sit down and say it. (I'd better get that ride report out before the details all vanish to the recesses of my mind.) Anyway, here's an offering to tide my masses of teeming readers (ha!) over.

Egads, I've been avoiding this for a reason. Ready? I'm posting photos. Sure, my current photo isn't bad (it's not exacly "good, either), but it's worlds better than my before photo. And my before photo isn't even the worst I could find. I'm sparing you the worst. (Hey, are you sure you want to see these? You can navigate away now, before it's too late... I won't say anything.)

Of course, since I'm somewhere around my halfway point, I really can't complain too much.

Oh, and get this: The shirt I'm wearing in my current photo? I got a ton of compliments on it (and we know they weren't just complimenting the top, right?). More importantly, get this: it's a 14-16. (Ye gods!) Sure, yeah, it's a Lane Bryant 14-16, but let's put this back into perspective: Last summer, I was wearing Lane Bryant tops in 22-24. That's nothing to sniff at.

Oh, yeah, a co-worker told me that some people have taken to calling me "The Incredible Shrinking Woman". Can you believe it? They're so funny.

Um, ok, yeah, no more stalling. Here goes...

Summer 2008:

April, 2009:

Update

2009-04-26T17:58:00.001-07:00

Decided to do the 60. Completed the 60. Butt hurts. Hands hurt. Rest now. Write later.

(yay!)

The Cyclist Must be Crazy

2009-04-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

Call me crazy(/ier). I signed up for the Flatflower 30mi ride. Now that I've driven all the way out here, I'm thinking of doing the full, hilly 100 miles.

HA! No, not really. BUT... I am seriously considering doing the Flatflower 60 miler.

I mean, it's hill-free. I've done over 20 miles with hills. 30 flat miles just seems... so... so... inconsequential.

No, you don't need to remind me of the last time I shot for 60 miles. If you remember, despite "cheating", I did actually ride over 60 miles. But it's not quite relevant because that was quite some time (and pounds and fitness, back and forth) ago.

So... what to do? I really think that I can do it if I pace myself properly. I'm thinking, what, a nice leisurely 12-14 miles per hour? (Flats, remember.)

Since the 30 and 60 overlap each other, I can actually start with the 30 and see how I feel at the first rest stop before making a final decision.

Oh, the conundrum! I really don't want to have to rely on SAG support. On the other hand, I don't want to do less than my capabilities. (And, really, I did kind of load up on calories and carbs at today's Spaghetti feed... so those calories/carbs need to go somewhere...)

Well, all I can say right now is, "Stay tuned." It's bound to be epic one way or the other. Wish me wisdom!

(Oh, and for those wondering about my integrity: I actually asked during check-in about switching to the 60. The answer: "I don't care what you do! People change the routes all the time, adding hills or whatever." Um, ok then...)

Get Thee to a Banana Tree!

2009-04-24T22:21:00.000-07:00

That's what Shakespeare might have told me if he saw me in the pool today. If he were alive. And knew that potassium helps with leg craps. And knew that bananas... Oh, nevermind; you get the idea.

I've gotten Charlie Horses before - in the middle of the night. Agony, you surely know. It's been quite some time since I've had them. I've never gotten them while awake and exercising. Much less in the pool. Egads!

In the middle of a crawl length: the right calf. Owie owie owie! Thank goodness it's a shallow pool! I can't imagine how I would have thrashed around if I couldn't have just stood up (on the no-cramping leg, of course).

OK, fine. We'll cut out the six-beat crawl. Cool it down a bit with a two-beat crawl and on to breast stroke. Five minutes later: the left calf. OOooowwwww!!!!!

The woman in the left lane stopped, empathized, and suggested I stand on it. I politely told her that she must be kidding.

Now, ready for the shocker? I still trudged on and met my goal of 1800 yards today. Go, me!

And go, me... go get a banana!

(Oh, for anyone keeping track: I did get up early on Wednesday, but "slept in" on Thursday (planned) and Friday (cold/windy). Let's see if I keep it up.)

I Lost the Argument... But the War is not yet Over

2009-04-21T20:25:00.001-07:00

So, here's how the argument with myself went this morning upon the ring of the alarm:

OK, there it is. Let's get up and go!
But it's cozy and warm and I'm really tired.
Do you remember how good it felt yesterday to get out and run? Our gear is all ready to go.
Yes, that was nice, but we're really, really tired and a bit worn down. When's the last time we took a rest day?
Um.... I dunno....
Aren't rest days important?
Er... yes... I guess...
Let's think about it. You can't take a rest day tomorrow because you have a club ride. Thursday is your partner run. Do you really want to wait until Friday to rest?
Why, you're awfully convincing.
I know I am. Reset the alarm and all will be well. We can get up early tomorrow.
Promise?
Of courzzzzzzz........

Of course, this entire exchange took about three seconds. Perhaps fewer. And it is true; my last full rest day was a full week ago. Now I just need to make sure that I don't let myself make a habit of this. Is it a coincidence that I was dragging at work today? Yeah, I don't think so either.

Up at the Crack of Darkness?

2009-04-20T18:41:00.001-07:00

I don't know what got into me. Yes, it's true: I've been thinking that I should get up and go walking and/or running with the dog before work since we got her sometime in November. I think I may have even gotten up for a few morning walks with her. (Few in this case equals no more than two. Probably one.) Since then, she only wonders why I take her out of the kennel to simply watch me make breakfast.

It's been cold, you see; it's been winter. When there wasn't ice or snow, there was cold. I mean these are bitter cold mornings. I have to get up early as it is, and it's even worse if I have to get up and out into the freezing cold. Well, I guess that excuse has well outlived its validity.

Cut to the first Monday back to work from spring break. What did I do? I heard the alarm go off, reset it for some more sleep, rethought, and actually got up. At 4:15 I climbed out of bed, dressed, clipped on my headlamp, clipped the dog into the hands-free leash, and went for a run.

Did you catch that? 4:15 A.M. Ante meridiem. That's a quarter after the middle of the night.

It. Felt. Great.

And the great feeling lasted all through the workday. Now, I need to hold on to the memories of that greatness, that alertness, that feeling of starting the day with physical accomplishment, and even the wonderful sounds of the sweet birds and frogs who sang to us despite the lack of dawn.

I need to hold on to those memories because something tells me that I'll need every single one of them to talk me out of bed tomorrow morning at 4:00 a.m. If I'm successful, this could be the beginning of a wonderful thing.

A Week to Go and I'm Ready! (I think...)

2009-04-19T19:04:00.001-07:00

Egads! A mere week from today I'll be riding in my first organzed ride in quite some time (the Chico Flatflower). It's only thirty miles, so I don't think I'll need to "cheat" like the last one. (Ahem, yeah... But, really, is it cheating when it's not really a race? I don't think so, either.)

So, anyway, I think I'm ready. It's a flat ride, but I haven't ridden with other human beings in quit some time, so I figured I should get out into a club ride. So, swallowing all those self-conscious fears that always come up in times like this, I joined today's "slow" ride. (Did you notice the quotation marks?)

Wowza! We started fast and got faster! Sure, I kept up fine in the beginning, but I forgot the primary rule of rides: save a little energy for later. Don't go all out! So when those hills I already knew would kill me came... they almost really killed me! Ah, but I made it up them all without having to stop (or be completely dropped)!

Of course, that extra mass that turns me into a "hill slug" really helps on the downhills. If they would have gotten out of my way, I really would have shown them how a fat chick can zoom! (Ahem, downhill, that is. I zoom downhill. Just so we're clear.)

But, man, I got a workout! I averaged 14.7 mph for the 21.75 miles, which is quite a bit faster than the 13.7 mph I averaged the last time I rode a similar ride. (Just imagine how high my average speed would have been if I let myself take the descents the way I normally take them!)

So, I'm ready for next week. I think. No, I know. Heck, if all else fails, there's always SAG support, so at least I won't have to cheat. So I'm ready enough.

A Visual Reminder to Help Avoid "Fast Filth"

2009-04-16T22:41:00.000-07:00

I've written about the disappointment from recent indulgences in fast food before, and others have told me that they have had similar experiences. Of course, the part of me that loves fast food occasionally pretends to have a better memory than the fit me, so I've been reminded of the "meh-ness" of fast food on more than one occasion. Those mouth-watering photos don't help, either.

Wouldn't it be nice to remember the blandness before forking over the dough (and, of course, filling the belly)? Thanks to West Virginia Surf Report, there's a visual "Ad vs. Reality" photo project available to help the fit sides of us win those argument against our lesser halves.

A yech-inducing sample follows, but head on over to the Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality for the full run-down. (Via LifeHacker.) Enjoy.

My Plan in a Nutshell (Part II)

2009-04-14T20:36:00.000-07:00

Alright, I'll admit it; I've procrastinated. I promised a second part to "my plan" (part I is here) and it's taken too long. I honestly have thought about this on and off, frearing that it's all too convoluted, but all I can do is put it together the best I can. After all, it's just basic math. But somehow, when I try to write it out, it sounds overly complicated. It's not; it's just math.

Once again, the standard disclaimer applies: This is what works for me. It may not work for you, and it certainly isn't expected to work for everyone. (Although, I'll say it, I'd be surprised to find it not work for someone.) But there are some different schools of thought regarding the finer points, so I'm not going to stomp my foot and insist that my way is better. It's not. It's just my way.

Now, on with today's topic: creating and maintaining a caloric deficit.

First off, losing weight is fundamentally simple. It's even better than that vague off-hand remark so often thrown around. It's not just, "Eat less and exercise more." It's this: Eat 500-1000 calories fewer than you burn. That's it. Bam. Done.

(Note, what follows is lengthy and somewhat complicated. I've posted a simpler method at the bottom. It's not my method, but it works for many people.)

OK, fine. More information. First, you have to figure out how many calories you per per day without exercise. I'll call this the AMR (active metabolic rate). Note that I'm not talking about BMR (basal metabolic rate), as we really don't care about that. We want to include those calories burned by getting ready for work, walking around during work, and chasing the kids or dog around after work. That all counts. But don't count what you burn during exercise (yet). Unless you're very, very consistent with your workouts, you're going to want to account for that separately. (Yes, this is one of those finer points, but I'll give my reasoning soon enough.)

So, how to figure that out? If, like me, you use Fitday, you're set. It'll do the math for you. If not, I'm pretty impressed by the recommendations from NutritionData. Leave the "minutes/day of additional exercise" blank and, unless you have a very active job or home life, select "somewhat active" (if you are relatively homebound, you might want to select "sedentary"). So, for my height and weight, it tells me that I'll need to eat 2511 calories per day to maintain my weight (without exercise). That's my AMR, my starting point.

Now, of course, I don't want to maintain my weight! I want to lose weight. That means that I should shave off 500-1000 calories per day. That sets me at eating between 1511-2011 calories per day. (Yes, that is quite a bit more than the 1200 calorie per day diet many of us have been recommended for decades.)

But wait, it gets better. Don't you exercise? I know I do. You know what I love about exercise? (Well, other than the adrenaline, endorphins, challenge, accomplishment, and ever-increasing strength, of course.) It lets me eat more. No, strike that, it requires that I eat more. If I go out for a walk, I probably don't need to eat more. But when I go on a long-ish bike ride and burn over 500 calories (or often over 1000 calories), I will eat more. I want to make sure that I feed my body properly, not punish it for going above and beyond. So, let's say I burn an extra 300 calories. Now I get to tack that on to my food allowance for the day. Instead of eating between 1511-2011 calories, I should eat between 1811-2311 calories on that day. And I'll still lose weight.

I do adjust per day. Some people argue against that, but let's just say that this keeps me sane, and that's what matters to me (and the people who have to survive being around me). It also, I believe, is teaching me to eat per my needs. Why eat more on days when I don't do much, and why fight off fatigue and headache on days where I push myself to an extreme?

So, the formula boils down to this:

(AMR) + (calories burned from exercise) - (500 or 1000) = daily calorie allowance

For my example of burning 300 calories, it ges like this:

2511 + 300 - 500 = 2311 (this is the upper limit)
2511 + 300 - 1000 = 1811 (this is the lower limit)

To lose weight, eat between 1811-2311 calories on that day.

That's a ton of math to do, I know. It works for me because I use fitday (the offline version). Some people use spreadsheets, or there are other tools that figure out net caloric deficits. Fitday does the math for me and all I look at every day is my deficit. Is it between 500 and 1000 calories? If so, I'm good.

(It's safe to start reading again here.)

Now, I promised a simpler method for people overwhelmed by the above. Figure out your average minimum exercise. Go back to NutritionData and (re)submit your information with your exercise. (Or switch to "active" or "very active".) It'll give you an AMR which includes your exercise calories. Take 500-1000 calories off of that and eat within that range every day. (For example, it gives me 2784 calories if I include my exercise, so I'd shoot for 1784-2284 calories per day.)

Now, again, this works for many people, but it doesn't work for me because it doesn't allow me to make up for calories burned on long hikes, long bike rides, or psuedo-brick workouts.

Wow, that's not much of a nutshell, is it? Ah, well, that's part II. I think I had a part III planned, though I can't currently remember what it was for. I'm sure it will come to me. When it does, I promise to make it more brief and coherent than today's post. Well, I promise to try. That counts, right?

Two Milestones in One, Baby!

2009-04-09T22:22:00.001-07:00

Random milestone: This is my 100th post. Not so much of an accomplishment, but worth mentioning.

Now this... this is an accomplishment:

I swam a swimmer's mile today! Woohoo! 33 laps (66 lengths) brought me to the swimmer's mile of 1650 yards. Go, me!

Yeah, it took me 45 minutes. I did take a few short breaks. I did the breaststroke for my warm-up and cool down (5 laps), did some skating drills with fins, and used some backstroke recovery for some otherwise rest-free laps. But the bulk, undoubtedly, was the crawl.

Not bad for someone who could, not so long ago, barely crawl 25 yards without dying. (And couldn't do more than 50 yards breaststroke.) Worse yet, according to the instructor I once trained with, my crawl looked like I was being electrocuted. So I can call this a significant accomplishment. Next up: swimming 1650 yards, pure crawl, without any rest.

For now, though, I'm going to bed for some deep sleep.

Picking at Nits: Wish Me Luck Edition

2009-04-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

I may bother some folk with today's post, but I've got to get this off my chest. I see it all the time at Gyminee, and only rarely at John Stone Fitness Forums. I don't pay enough attention to see it anywhere else, but I know it's out there. Anyway, here's today's nit:

People set a goal, say losing twenty pounds, announce it, and then say, "Wish me luck!"

It's the luck part that bothers me. You see, I don't believe luck has anything to do with it. To imply that it does, I think, sets people up for failure. Oh, I didn't lose the weight. What bad luck! Of couse, there are others that will blame themslves for having poor will-power, which I don't necessarily agree with either. Both of these situations, blaming luck or blaming will-power shifts the focus away from where it frequently needs to be: on the method.

Not able to lose 20 pounds on an extreme low-carb diet, and cheating all the time? Must have low will-power, right? No, perhaps your body is telling you that it would, indeed, like some fruit and grains once in a while. It's time to rethink or readjust.

Not losing any weight even though you're eating all low-fat food? Must be bad luck, eh? Probably not. Have you been looking at calories? If not, you'll probably be surprised to find that a lot of low-fat foods have added sugars. (And vice versa.) Time to change your plan a bit.

You get the idea. If something isn't working, don't jump right to will-power, and certainly don't blame luck. Here's an analogy: Have you ever seen a mechanic say, "wish me luck" before going to work on the car? Does he blame himself for not being able to diagnose the problem right away? No, of course not. He tinkers and fiddles, determination on his face, until he figures it out, testing the system properly before making each change, like a scientist.

Yes, it's all about science. When we make these changes in our lives, whether losing weight or becoming faster in a sport, we need to take act as methodological scientists.

Luck doesn't enter into it. Luck is for lottery tickets against ridiculous odds. Luck is for kicking a ball through the goal posts against a number of uncontrollable variables. Luck is for anything we can't fully control.

This, however, we can fully control. Luck doesn't enter into it. That's good news.

What then?

2009-04-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

Ah, the joys of needing new clothes. I finally went shopping recently (and, yes, took some goodies to the tailor). After spending a few dollars at that old stand-by for larger women (Lane Bryant), I "earned" some Real Women Dollars. For the uninitiated, those are basically coupons on future purchases. It's actually a pretty good deal.

Of course, I returned to redeem the coupons (and buy some pants this time). (Oh, thanks for asking! I'm down to a just slightly tight 18 in most styles. Yes, I'm very proud, considering that I have been up to a 26!)

So, back to me at the store. I'm standing there, waiting to pay, and looking at the "Real Women Dollars". I then wonder to myself: When I lose so much weight that I can no longer shop at Lane Bryant, will I no longer be a "real woman"?

Yes, I do crack myself up.

The next day, I shared this story with a coworker.

Without missing a beat, she sweetly responded, "No, you'll then be a skinny bitch."

I've decided that I can live with that.

What a sweet compliment (I think).

2009-03-31T17:44:00.000-07:00

To my delight, people have been commenting on my loose clothing. I've safety-pinned some pants and skirts so they'll stay up. I've dug out some too-small clothing that was gathering dust. Often, the previously too-small clothing has already become too-big clothing. Sometimes it's still a bit too-small, but most often it fits about right. I also bit the bullet and went shopping, but didn't buy a lot. (I don't plan to stay this size for long.)

So, anyway, I'm in this weird place where my clothes are way too big or just a tiny bit too small. A couple of times, I've put on a shirt from the closet and instantly dropped it into our charity box, slightly irritated that it's already too loose. (In a gee, shucks sort of way, of course.) More often, though, I'll wear it baggy.

Today, in my mailbox, I found a card from a business not very close to our school. I thought it odd, so I asked around, and it seems that I'm the only person to receive this business card. I'll take it as a compliment that someone is giving me a "hint", and send out a silent "thank you" to the anonymous person who put it in my mailox.

The card? It's for an alterations shop.

My Plan in a Nutshell (Part I)

2009-03-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

A fellow Gyminee user asked what I was doing. Since Gyminee's posting leaves something to be desired, and since I'm doing this whole "blogging thing" anyway, it makes sense to describe what I'm doing here.

It's actually not a big thing, not really. At the most basic level, it's math. Once again, I should mention that when I try to lose weight, I succeed. The question is why, in the past, I've stopped trying. (We'll put aside the times I've stopped ridiculous diets like Atkins. That had to stop.) But, I think that what I'm doing now, the basics at least, provides the basis for a lifelong healthy diet.

On the other hand, if I can toot my own horn for a moment, I have lost about 37 pounds since November 15. That's one to two pound per week, consistently. (I'm also down 44 pounds from my all-time high weight.) Clearly, I'm doing something right (much to the likely chagrin of my physician who thinks I should be eating far fewer calories).

But I should note that my situation is just that: my situation. Everyone has their own mountain to climb, and they may need to take a different approach. Just because it works for me doesn't mean that I believe that it would work for everyone (well, actually, I do sort of, but you'll see why). More importantly, we all have particular hidden obstacles to face, whether we've put them up or allowed someone else to put them up, and there's no one fix for those.

So, anyway, here it goes. My "formula" for weight loss. With no particular organization:

Maintain a caloric deficit of 500-1000 calories per day. (This will be described in greater detail in another post. For now know that this means that you should burn about 500-1000 caloies more per day than you eat. This includes what you burn by simply existing.) Don't short yourself! I've been averaging 1900-2000 calories per day and losing weight. Food is fuel, and you won't get far without it.

Eat breakfast. Real food. Every day. Eat right after you get up (or within a reasonable period of time).

Eat five or six meals and snacks per day, splitting your calories fairly evenly across each meal/snack. Again, this should be real food.

Eat protein in nearly every meal. (I don't often have protein in nighttime snack, but I do try to have it in every other meal.)

Eat fruit and/or vegetables in nearly every meal. (My goal is every meal, but it doesn't happen.)

Eat healthy fats! There is no reason to avoid olive oil, nuts, or peanut butter. Heck, I also see nothing wrong with butter and some not-so-lean meat on ocassion! Just be sure to watch the calories and make sure that fats make up no more than 35% of your food by calories.

Exercise five times per week. You should sweat and breathe hard. This should include weight/resistance training at least twice per week. Find sports and activities you enjoy.

Keep yourself hydrated. Your urine should be light or clear. It actually doesn't matter (to me, at least) whether it's plain water or some other calorie-free beverage.

Don't deny yourself "real food". This leads to a good/bad food mentality. (Or, worse yet, a good/bad person mentality!) The key is moderation.

Realize that you're sometimes going to need to eat more (or less) depending on circumstances. Just rode your bike for an hour? You'll probably need to eat quite a bit more. Indulged a bit yesterday? You'll probably not be that hungry, and it's OK to eat light today.

Know that you are NOT on a diet. What you are doing now has to be what you're going to do for your entire life, with certain adjustments. If that doesn't seem do-able, then there's something that needs to change with what you're doing now. (I may make an exception to this later if/when I reach goal and do some "cutting" and "bulking" to efficiently gain muscle and lose fat. But it doesn't apply right now.)

Well, that's all I can think of right now. I will go more in depth about creating and maintaining a caloric deficit in an upcoming post. It just became too unwieldy to try to do it all in one post. Heck, it's a bit unwieldy NOW!

A Lesson in Preparedness

2009-03-29T08:41:00.001-07:00

I embarked on a lovely ride yesterday. Southeast Reno. Lots of flat road, beautiful mountains, and even a significant amount of bike lanes. Other than realizing that I was a bit overdressed with my full leggings rather than shorts or knickers, it was set to be a lovely ride.

I kept admiring the beautiful sights and berating myself for being unwilling to stop to take some photographs, but let's face it: when you're cruising along on a beautiful day, the last thing you want to do is stop.

Nevertheless, I found myself in a dead-end parking lot with a beautiful view, so I forced myself to stop. Let's pause a moment and admire the photos, shall we?

Lovely, no? The "No Poaching" sign amuses me. You never know what you'll find in Reno! Oh, one more photo:

What's so special about that photo? I hear you exclaim. Well, if you look into about the center of the photo, you see where I stopped to fix a flat.

You see, after taking these photos, I hopped back on my bike (well, back on the bike seat) and rode off... only to notice an odd feel. Sure enough, I looked down and saw that my front tire was flat. Okiedokie.

So I found a patch of grass, and began the repair process. Right after I realized and corrected the fact that I rested my bike "expensive side down", a nice man in a truck pulled up and asked if I needed help. Since I already confirmed that I had a spare tube, my tire wrenches, a mini-pump, and a CO2 cartridge, I told him I was fine. Besides, if worse came to worst, I had a cell phone. He took another look at my bike and tools sprawled out, and hesitantly drove off.

All right, back to work. The tire came off relatively easily, the tube came out, the new tube went back in, and the tire went back on really easily. (A little too easily, actually. Putting the tire back on was always the hardest part for me.) Pumped it up a bit with the mini-pump and finished it off with the CO2. Propped up the bike and compared the pressure of the newly pumped front tire with the earlier perfectly pumped rear tire. (I always repump right before a ride.)

Wait a minute... Did you, by chance, think this was a happy story? Well, it's not a sad story, exactly, but it is a cautionary tale. Because what did I find when I reached back to feel the pressure of the rear tire? You guessed it: nothing. Flat as flat can be.

Loverly.

I only carry one spare tube. Well, make that carried. I shall carry two from this point forward.

It held a little bit of air, so I tried to pump it up and ride the flat. After stopping twice to repump, I gave up and walked back. Funny how you can ride out in only about 20 minutes, but it takes about an hour to walk back.

Oddly, no one stopped to offer help or a ride back (except for some cyclists, of course). I don't know whether I would have accepted a ride back, but it would have been nice to be asked. Plenty of people with trucks drove by, so it's not like they wouldn't have had space for the bike. Ah, well, no matter. I got in some good walking, and no longer was reluctant to stop to take pictures. You can go here to see the complete photo album.

I was grateful to cyclists who stopped to offer help, but it wasn't "help" I needed, it was a tube, and I wasn't going to make someone else ride with one less tube.

So, in any case, the moral of today's story: Don't believe that you'll only get one flat. Be prepared for more. The guy at the LBS (local bike shop) informed me that he even carries three on long rides. I'll be sure to take that under consideration!

How to Boil Easy-to-Peel Eggs

2009-03-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

OK, I made a batch of hard-boiled eggs for ready high-protein snacks and now have them sitting in my refrigerator, ready to go. So, for absolutely no reason, I'm going to give my recipe for the perfectly peelable hard-boiled egg.

Now, don't run away yet. Sure, you know how to boil an egg, but do you know how to prepare it so that the shell peels off in nearly one piece? How to make it so that you don't have to spend precious time picking off all the pieces, often losing some delicious egg meat in the process, and certainly making you think twice about gnoshing on hard-cooked eggs? If you do know, then you're excused and may run off to, perhaps, read the free online copy of Cycle California! Magazine (click the picture of the magazine). If you don't, though, stick around. It's worth it.

First, take out your eggs and let them warm up a bit to room temperature. Poke a hole in the wide end with a safety pin.

Next, get your pot of water boiling. Of course, you want enough water so that the eggs will be submerged when you put them in. I always salt my water, but this probably is inconsequential.

When your water is at a rolling boil, gently add the eggs. (Use a spoon or something so that you can put the eggs in without breaking the shell.) I use the ridiculous double wire whisk/tongs that they sold on late night tv. In fact, that's the only use I've found for those things.

Boil the eggs for 16-20 minutes, depending on how hard you like your hard-boiled eggs. You might get away with boiling for a shorter time, but I've never tried.

Now, this is where the important part begins. A couple of minutes before time is up, prepare a bowl of ice water. I mean ice water. Use half a dozen ice cubes and fill with the coldest water you can get.

When time is up, gently take the eggs from the pot and place in the bowl of ice water. Let sit until cool. Move the eggs to the refrigerator.

What you have now are eggs with shells that you can gently break on a couple of sides, then peel off the shell. (I typically start the process on the big end.) Kind of push sideways as you peel off the shell and membrane so that they sort of slide off and you can get it all off in maybe one or two big pieces. It's seriously wonderful.

How do I think it works? Here's my pseudo-scientific (and probably wrong) explanation: On top of letting air and pressure out of the eggs while boiling, the pinpricks allow water in when the eggs are submerged in the ice cold water. So when you move the eggs from the hot pot to the cold bowl, they suck in just a little bit of water. This water provides a layer of moisture which makes the peel and membrane separate just a bit from the egg. When you peel the egg, there's no picking off the shell piece by piece; it almost wants to come off easily.

Voila! Enjoy your easy to peel hard-boiled eggs as nummy snacks! If you don't eat all (or any of) your yolks, be sure to save some for your doggies or ratties or most other fuzzy animals. They don't have to worry nearly as much about the 9 calories per gram of fat.

(Oh, and sorry for the awfully fuzzy picture. I took it with my iphone and then gobbled up the eggs before I saw the quality online. My bad.)

No Threat of Deprivation Here...

2009-03-24T21:38:00.001-07:00

Yeah. So I got that whole deprivation thing off my chest. And now...?

First off, I'm finally healthy again. It's been a slow climb up, but I think that - today - I can finally say that I'm 100%. Yesterday might have been 99.5%, but the weekend certainly was not there. But I got out there and ran, swam, and weight trained. Whew.

And then I got back inside and ate. And ate. And ate.

Am I really that hungry? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. So what's going on?

OK, so I let myself eat at or around maintenance while I was sick. I mean, come on. Should one really throw a caloric deficit on top of everything else when one is suffering from a virus? I say, no reason to kick a body while it's down.

Well, the body's back up. But so is, apparently, my appetite. Or my belly. Or... something.

Fear not, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Although I hit 2855 calories today, Fitday assures me that I still have achieved a caloric restriction of 31 calories today. So there, take that, healthy but "bingey" eating! (HBBE, for short.) No fat blasting today, but we're not building up reserves, either.

Let's reflect, shall we?

Breakfast: great. Too little fat, though. About 450 calories. Had a nice savory oatmeal/egg/vegetarian "sausage" fritatta-type dish and a green smoothie.
Morning snack: good. Still low in fat, but OK everywhere else. About 190 calories. Another green smoothie. My morning snacks are a bit low since switching to smoothies. Maybe I should add some nuts here...
Lunch: good. I made up for some fat here (the ranch dressing always does it), but it was about 410 calories (42% fat). Leftover dinner, salad, half an orange.
Afternoon snack: Here's where the HBBE started. I landed at 55% fat for the "meal" and very little protein. It started with a quesadilla, almonds, and a ZBar. Finished and should have been more than satisfied. Nope. The True North almond clusters called to me. Um, yeah, let's top off all that fat and carbs with... more fat and carbs! Anyway, they called and I answered. More than once. Still, the HBBE ended with under 850 calories. Certainly not good and not balanced, but let's reflect once again on my past history with Jack in the Box. Yes, things could definitely have been worse. Let's move on.
Um... second snack? Went to therapy, swam, came home. The almond clusters called to me once more, so I had to put them all in my belly so they'd shut up. Clearly, we will think twice about allowing almond clusters into the house again. Damage: 340 more calories, mostly fat with a little carb/protein.

I can list the rest, but I think it's pretty inconsequential right now. Here are the lessons I'm taking from this.

One: I need to consider planning on cooking dinner right after arriving home. The too-big, unbalanced afternoon snack has occurred on more than one occasion. Sure, it's a little early to have dinner around 3:30 to 4:30, but it makes more sense to continue something that clearly isn't working.

Two: I need to hard boil some eggs and get some more easy-to-grab protein sources stocked up. I suspect that if I had gnoshed on some good proteins, this wouldn't have spiraled like it did.

Three: I need to figure out why I'm willing to eat when I'm not really hungry. Sure, no big damage done, but some part of me is trying to tell me something. I need to figure out how to listen so I can deal with it.

OK, I think I've set up some food for thought. Tomorrow's a fresh day. Chicken thighs are already defrosted and ready to go for tomorrow's... um... Linner? Dunch? Meal#4? Nevermind; I'll figure that out later. One thing at a time.

This is Not About Deprivation

2009-03-18T17:28:00.000-07:00

First, please note that I'm sick. So, when you peer at my empty training log, too-variable calories, or nearly certain upcoming plateau (or worse: weight gain), your sympathies are appreciated. Wait, strike that. Your sympathies are appreciated now as well. I can use all the happy, healthful thoughts anyone can spare.

OK, on to today's topic. This one has been jumping out at me for a while. It hits me when I see people talking about how to avoid or replace some particular food that apparently needs to be banished. It smacks me in the face when I look at the nutrition log of someone who simply can't stay on a diet, and it turns out that they're eating maybe 1000 (or fewer) calories of typical "diet" fare. It nudges me when I see certain coworkers dining on only a large bowl of edamame for lunch. It really stopped me dead in my tracks when one of those coworkers walked past me with a half-eaten platter of nachos and apologized.

Apologized?

Yes, as she walked by, she said that she was sorry. She knows that I'm working hard to lose weight and didn't mean to parade "real" food right in front of me, knowing that I'm probably starving. I was flummoxed.

Who's starving?

Well, I suppose I'd be starving if I only ate a big bowl of edamame for lunch. (What kind of lunch is that?) I'd be starving if I eliminated anything that was "real food" from my diet. I'm sorry, but everything I eat today is real food. (Note the italics.) What else is there? No, no need to answer. I know the alternatives to real food. On both sides.

I'm going to posit this: For the greater part of my adult years, I rarely ate real food. I'd subsist almost entirely on food I could get handed to me while I sat in my car. At other times, I'd subsist on almost entirely on protein-based foods, including pancakes made with some sort of protein-based substance. Some times, I'd eschew all "bad" food, and dine on only things that grew out of the ground or had some sort of "organic" label affixed to them. At other times, I'd subsist on almost entirely packaged foods with some sort of "diet" or "100 calorie" phrase plastered across its colorful wrapping. (The colorful wrapping, no doubt, making up for the lack of color inside.)

All of these diets, for better or worse, were devoid of real food. Whether it's all fast food, or all low-calorie fruits, vegetables, and pieces of cardboard masquerading as low-calorie crackers, it's not real food.

But, yet, all of those foods, together, can be real food. The key, I believe, is balance.

It's like basic chemistry. Hydrogen isn't water. Oxygen isn't water. It takes balance to create water. The same thing goes for real food. It's not only hamburgers, and it's not only carrot sticks. It's a delicate balance that satisfies our bodies and minds.

If you enjoy red meat, then go ahead and have a nice, juicy steak for dinner once in a while. But skip the starchy vegetables with oil and choose, instead, two servings of yummy vegetables. Have some nachos when you want them, and increase the amount of fruit and vegetables later in the day. Want waffles? Go ahead, once in a while, and make sure you're getting in protein to balance the sugar.

Perhaps I have a different perspective because I have the luxury of room for calories. I'd rather exercise more than eat less. The good news is that I can keep this up all the way to my goal weight and beyond. I've done the math. Since I'll be active, I'll be able to eat 2000+ calories per day even at maintenance of my "ideal" weight of 135 pounds, if I take myself tha far. I may need to take it down to 1600-1800 when I'm crawling to the target weight finish line, but you'll never see me sit down to a plate of carrot and celery sticks trying to desperately maintain a 1200 calorie diet. Honestly, I don't think anyone should pull down their calories that far.

For a time, years ago, I attended OA, Overeater's Anonymous. Now don't get me wrong, there are people with legitimate eating disorders, and perhaps OA helps them. But here's my problem: How do you abstain from food? Every meeting, people would lament about how they failed at abstinence. Well, of course. You cannot abstain from food. You must not abstain from food. Food=life. We know that, right?

I recently looked for synonyms for the word "diet", knowing that when I use it to refer to my daily nutritional intake (i.e. what I eat), some people might confuse it for me going "on a diet". What did I find? Here you go:

Wait, what? The definition of diet is "abstinence from food"? Seriously? Look at the other words. Regime, restriction, starvation. This is awful. If this is true, then Food=Life, and Diet=Death. I'm not kidding. Look at those synonyms again.

At least the picture looks better a little farther down the thesaurus.

Much, much better. Definition: daily intake of food. Synonyms: daily bread, edibles, grubbery (how fun!), nourishment, nutrition, subsistence, sustenance.

We've got to realize that food is nourishment. It is also grubbery. I think. Let's skip that one. It is also goodies. Yes. Diet, our daily intake of food, is both nutrition and goodies. Why not? It's all about balance. And balance needs everything. We can be unbalanced one way just as easily as we can be unbalanced the other way.

When we want to lead a healthy lifestyle, we need to remember that real food is part of the second view of diet, not the first. Healthy living is not about abstinence; it is about nourishment. It is not about deprivation; it is about sustenance.

My advice: When someone starts talking about "real food", or about eliminating some "bad food", smile and nod, and be gently sympathetic. Then sit down to your meals of healthful, balanced, real food. When they peter out and become frustrated that they just can't continue on their deprivation-based diet, and wonder how you're able to continue improving your health (and reducing your weight, if that's your goal), then remind them that it is not about deprivation. It is about balance. And it's about eating real food.

Random Observations Part II

2009-03-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

OK, time for some more happy observations:

My heartrate drops down quickly. Almost too quickly. When I drop to a walk from running because my HR monitor yelled at me for working too hard, it seems that I have to start running again almost immediately, or it will yell at me again for not working hard enough!
I think I'm ready for my smaller swimsuit. When I climbed out of the pool the other day, my current one was actually hanging down in spots and baggy.
Fruit really is the food of the gods. I am in ecstacy when I eat juicy cantaloupe, pineapple, or - particularly - pummelo.
Whoever gave dark meat a bad name should be flogged. Broiled chicken thigh has got to be one of the most perfect foods. Protein, iron, flavor, and just enough fat to make it sizzle without adding anything. KFC can't compete.
I'm not sure whose calves I have, but they're not the ones I was using a few months ago. These are much nicer.
When I wear pants that fit (not the baggy pants I'm safety-pinning so they'll stay up), I have a decent tush. I wonder if I stole that from the same person I stole the calves from?
When I wear clothes that fit properly (again, not baggy clothes that hang on me), I get compliments left and right.
When I look in the mirror, I feel... almost... normal. Maybe I never should have felt otherwise, but I did. That feeling of conspicuousness is eroding.

The Good, the Bad, and the Issues

2009-03-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll start with the bad. And the issues. They sort of go hand in hand.

Elsewhere in Internetland, I entered into a conversation about fat loss. When someone said that, second of course to cardio+strength, cardio is the best way to lose fat. I argued that point. (And still maintain that strength training is the best way to lose fat.)

But that's not what I'm upset about right now. I can debate that stuff all day long. My mistake was using a personal experience as evidence for my argument. Big mistake. Because what happens then? Yes, it's apparently an open invitation to critique my personal training priorities.

Ugh.

Seriously, if I want help, I'll ask. I've done it before. I have resources, I use them, and then I make informed decisions. If I need help, I'll post a question on one of the forums I frequent.
Maybe I'm ridiculously petty or defensive, and maybe I walked right into it, but it bothers me when someone offers unsolicited advice. Somehow, it's awfully insulting. I try to avoid doing it myself (or, at the very least, apologize when I can't stop myself), and I don't think it's too much to ask that people don't pass judgement on my decisions unless I ask.

It's even worse when someone claims that my priorities are "ridiculous". Yes, this person said that word. He's in another country, so I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn't understand the connotations, but the word still stings. Hey, let me post something about how I'm eating twelve donuts a day and wondering why I'm not losing weight, and then go ahead and call me ridiculous. I'll join in. But while my methods are working, why question them?

The discussion was never even supposed to be about me.

Yes, these are the issues that I battle.

I'm still pondering my visceral reaction during a conversation with my mother. (Note: I try to never let my mother know I'm losing weight. Yes, this is being dealt with in therapy.) She sent me a magazine with a note about some articles that have to do with weight loss. The note said something like, "Read it or throw it out, I love you anyway." The "anyway" gets me. "Either way" would have been so much better. But that's my mom.

But wait, it gets better. When she brought it up in a recent phone call, and I tried to change the subject, she made some reference to how losing weight is difficult. I slipped and said, "Well, I'm trying." Her voice turned to instant sympathy and she said, "I know," as if it was a forgone conclusion that I was failing.

Um, no. When I try, I succeed. The question is why, sometimes, I stop trying. Wait, strike that. The question is why, in the past, I have stopped trying. There, that's much better.

OK, so we've covered the bad and the issues. Now for the good. On the bright side, I have to adore a coworker. She's a triathlete. I won't say that her accomplishments come easily to her, but I am going to appreciate that she's an accomplished athlete. I'd dare say that she's a natural athlete. Anyway, my point: Here I am, all 215 pounds of me, and what does she do? She invites me to join her and her friends in a marathon. A half marathon is available, but nothing less. Yes, it's not until October, but still.

I love it when people can look past the appearance and recognize that I can accomplish great things.

It doesn't matter that I know that it's out of my current grasp; it's wonderful when someone gives me the benefit of the doubt.

Especially a "real" athlete.

I owe her a hug.

The Food on the Wagon Tastes Better

2009-03-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well, isn't that weird.

For some reason, I decided not to go to the gym today. OK, I'm tired; it's understandable. When contemplating dinner, nothing sounded good. Well, let's be a little more accurate. I seemed determined to have fast food, and nothing sounded good. I decided that Doritos would be good, though.

OK, 7-11 it became. I'll take a free day. (That seemed to be the plan, somehow, before it even became the plan. Weird.) So, anyway, she who is so determined to eat junk food... how about Doritos, Stouffer's Lasagna, a chocolate bar, and a coke. Well, that's certainly some crappy food, isn't it? That's something I would do regularly in my past life.

So, here we go. One free day and some good old fashioned junk food.

It tasted... like... meh.

Shouldn't it have been delicous?

Isn't it always more delicious than the healthy stuff?

Well, isn't it?

Apparently, it isn't.

I had the same "problem" on recent controlled (reasonable; within caloric limits) "cheats" at fast food. I chalked it up to bad cooks or stale food. But it seems that no, really, crap food tastes like crap. I'm not missing out on any delicious food after all.

Have I really been wrong all this time?

When did healthy food become the delicious food?

Isn't that weird?

Isn't that wonderful?

Running by Heart Rate Preliminary Evaluation

2009-03-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

Warning, this is an extremely boring post. If you're not in the mood for some number crunching, feel free to watch this youtube video on how Mike from Dirty Jobs stays in shape on the road, and then wander around youtube for some more entertaining education. (Not that you'll catch me doing burbees any time soon.)

OK, let's take a quick look at my running progress from my heartrate training. To recap, I have two basic runs: a "base" run where most of the run/walk occurs at 70-80% of my HRR (heart rate reserve), and a "tempo" run where most of the run/walk occurs at 80-90% of my HRR. It goes without saying that the base run is much longer/farther than the tempo run.

It should be noted that nothing exists in a vacuum. I've been swimming, weight training, cycling, and elliptical training since beginning this training method. There are surely cross-over benefits.

With that said, I am certainly very optimistic from this early data.

Let's look at my base runs first. I'll eliminate the first run because that was a hilly course. The following three were about the same course (if not the same distance). On the second run, I ran 44% of the time. By the fourth, I ran over 50% of the time. In the core running split, I ran/walked at a pace of 14:52/mile for about 39 minutes. This improved to a pace of 14:34/mile for about 44 minutes. That doesn't sound like much, but remember - this is only a difference from the second zone 3 run to the fourth zone 3 run. I say: Not bad. Remember also that this is a very easy run/walk. I'm frustrated when my monitor tells me that my heartrate is too high because I'm really not feeling stressed.

It gets even better when I look at my "tempo" runs. Because these have been basically on the same course, I could compare first to fourth, but - for consistency - I'll compare second to fourth. Now, because the core running split time increased from 12 minutes to 16 minutes, it's a little misleading, but I did improve from running about 44% of the time about 48% of the time. More importantly, I had to take four walking breaks during that 12 minutes, but only had to take three walking breaks during the 16 minute session. Best of all: I improved from a 13:11/mile pace to a 12:38 pace. Remember that I am in no way pushing myself harder (because my HR monitor prevents me from doing so). Rather, I'm simply becoming a fitter, more efficient runner.

Now, the weird thing is that I still do struggle mentally on my "tempo" runs. I expect myself to have to slow down to a walk, but my HR monitor tells me to suck it up -it isn't so bad. I have caught myself running faster to push my heart rate up (and thus justify a walking break), but I realized the short-sightedness of that and now consciously avoid it.

So, overall, I think my running plan is on the right path... so to speak. I'm proud of myself. But I'm also preparing myself for a lot of walking during my upcoming 5k event. That's OK. I'll blame it on the hills. At least I'm getting out there.

The Body Shall Not be Shortchanged

2009-03-04T21:28:00.000-08:00

Well, isn't this interesting?

I'll start at the beginning. (Where else?) The majority of this morning's smoothie, I have to confess, went down the drain. In retrospect, it should have gone into the compost bin, but mistakes were made. The other mistake, the primary mistake, was an overdose of a certain ingredient.

Basic recipe: Blueberry/blackberry juice (I had to get rid of my Naked Juice leftovers somehow), spinach, frozen banana, frozen blueberries, frozen raspberries, protein powder with greens. Delicious, right? Yep, I agree. Here's where I went astray: goji berries.

Now, I'm going to assume that goji berries are generally fine. I've eaten snack bars with goji berries and been OK with the unusual flavor. In fact, having purchased a pound of the stuff, I'd better get OK with them again. I think the mistake was the quantity.

When I took my first taste, I was so impressed with my ever-improving smoothie skills. No need for agave nectar, even! Not bad. I doled it out (half now and half for my morning snack) and went on with breakfast.

Then I noticed it. The undertaste, I shall call it. It wasn't even an aftertaste, really, it was always there. It was a smell, as well. It tasted like funky plastic. I tried to overcome it; I really did. I couldn't. Half the morning smoothie and all the snack smoothie went to waste.

The rest of the day I ate crappishly. Not awful, just not very good. I had a salad and two mandarins with lunch, but had little fruit and vegetables otherwise. To make up for the lost calories from the smoothie, I had granola bar type snacks.

After work, no shock here, I was ravenous. Jerky, quesadilla, clif nectar bar, dark chocolate. I simply would not be sated. Wowzers, I realized when I entered it all into fitday, I ate enough calories to cover dinner! Dinner, hours later, became fried eggs (reduced yolk) and catsup. (I really needed to catch up on protein.)

So, what for dessert? Well, here's where it gets interesting. (I know, finally, right?) I looked at my options: dark chocolate, cereal, pudding, ice cream. What did I settle on? Cantaloupe. That's right. After years of dieting on and off, I have absolutely never been a "fruit for dessert" person. But that's what I wanted. And it was the most delicious cantaloupe I've ever eaten. Somehow my body was starving for fruit. Well, no wonder as I hardly had any all day. Sometimes the belly knows what the body needs.

The body shall not be shortchanged.

Day Two

2009-03-03T21:35:00.001-08:00

Not only did I survive, but I went on to the pull routine today. Compared to yesterday, it was a walk in the park. (Well, as far as intensity. I couldn't exactly do many reps for all the exercises.) There's something about those big-muscle exercises like lunges and squats that really get the blood pumping. Even push-ups seem to be more intense than what I did today.

Perhaps that's a very good thing. Follow up an insanely difficult (but rewarding) day with an easier day.

Oh, what exactly was this easier day? Again, it's an elliptical sandwich: elliptical to warm-up and a bit of cardio, then a resistance circuit, then back to the elliptical to cool down. The resistance was three circuits of (modified) inverse rows, standard crunches, chin-ups (to the equalizer), and leg raises (an ab exercise that hits the obliques a bit more). The only problem is that the transition is a bit difficult because the equalizers don't stay in the same position between the four exercises. I'll have to plan more carefully next time.

So it looks like a plan that should work for the next couple of months. Now to make sure I continue on plan this time.

If I don't show up at work tomorrow, here's why...

2009-03-02T21:46:00.000-08:00

OK, time to come clean. I got these cool Lebert Equalizers for bodyweight strength training (because, somehow, I've developed some weird aversion to isolation exercises). I tell people all the time to consider strength training. I got some advice from the John Stone fitness forums on improving my equalizer routine. I was even offended when my doc told me, quite some time ago, that I should lighten up on the strength training and do a ton of cardio.

So, what have I been doing for the past month plus? That's right: zero strength training and a ton of cardio. What a maroon.

Now, let's shift to a few hours ago. There I am, at home, considering my options. Running is out because it's raining nonstop and freezing cold. (I can take one or the other; I can't take both at the same time.) I still haven't figured out how to do my HR running routine on a treadmill while tracking running vs. walking. Clearly, biking is out as well. I could drive over to the gym for a swim, but I'm just not in the mood and I want something tougher. I have a shiny elliptical in the guest room for days like this and it's calling to me. It hits me: Time to use the elliptical for purpose #3.

Sidebar: I had three main purposes in mind when I plunked down the cash for my elliptical. 1) Cardio for mornings. 2) A cardio option for days when I can't/won't pull myself away from the television. 3) A cardio option for strength training days that doesn't make me feel like a complete loon by doing toe-taps and other standard aerobics tripe. (Don't get me wrong; aerobics in a class are great. Aerobics to a tape are ok. Aerobics all alone to your own music? Not my thing.) OK, moving on.

So I firm up my equalizer routines (push/pull), create a heart monitor program for the whole thing, get suited up, and go. First up: the elliptical. First bit of good news: the elliptical is getting easier and easier. I no longer feel like I'm killing myself just on the lowest level. I'm easily able to get and keep myself in the heartrate zone I want. Great. Twenty minutes later and I'm feeling worked out but not overly worn out. Perfect.

Next up: The Equalizer Push routine. The exercises: Assisted Lunges, Modified Push-ups, Assisted Single-leg Squats, and Dips assisted by feet. The plan: Three non(ish)-stop circuits with two minutes rest between each circuit.

More good news: Assisted lunges are waaaaayyy too easy for me now. (Hey, how'd that happen?) I'll have to get something harder. Bad news: I've lost strength in push-ups. Expected. I'll build back up. Oh-my-gawd-what-the-hell-is-this news: Who the hell came up with assisted one-leg squats (much less unassisted one-leg squats)?!? Three. That was all I could do, and that was with a hell of a lot of assistance. Three. Egads. On to dips and a successful set of twelve... until I realize that my feet are way to close in. Ah well, next set was harder.

But still, those single-leg squats?!? Absolute insanity. (And if you think I was able to maintain three per set, you're not paying attention.)

I catch my breath in my two-minute break and reconsider my plan. My primary plan is now to survive. Yes. Merely to live through the insanity I have wrought. Two circuits later and I climb back on to the elliptical. Yes, climb. This is not just a figure of speech. It takes all my strength and will to get on there. Through the whole ten minutes my legs are rubber and I'm having a heck of a time keeping my heartrate low enough for a cool-down.

But I actually met both goals. I did the elliptical-circuit-elliptical routine. And I survived.

But if I'm not at work tomorrow, I've collapsed somewhere between my bed and the front door. No need to knock. Just bring me some fresh fruit and jerky. And water. Maybe a pillow. I'll be fine.

Presenting "Toy" Number One

2009-02-28T23:07:00.001-08:00

Well, this is what it's come to. I'm consistently exercising and eating right, and everything is going well, but I have nothing interesting to say. (OK, OK, even less interesting to say than normal.) So I'm going to "review"/describe one of my favorite "toys". Yes, I'll confess that my wallet hates my lifestyle change. I, on the other hand, love the gadgets and tools. Maybe we'll reach a compromise soon. (Note: Nothing you see here is an affiliate link. I'll let you know if that ever changes.)

So, up first: The Blender Bottle. (If you search around, you can probably find it cheaper through another site.)

Let me tell you: This is no gimmick. The little whisk ball you see in the picture zips around the inside of the bottle (powered by your shaking, of course) and mixes it all up. And I mean it all.

Note: I've tried the others. The ones with a little mixing grate near the top. Even one with a battery-powered blender at the bottom. (Well, actually, that one worked well but had no way of closing, so it wasn't exactly portable.)

It's truly a thing of beauty. Protein powder? Blended. Powdered greens? Smooth. Powdered egg white? Well, there we have one problem. It whips so well that my egg whites become frothy. So, yes, one could complain that it works too well.

Aside from the too-frothy egg whites, I also haven't been able to quite figure out how to drink right after shaking without dripping stuff off the lid. I've resorted to slurping off the lid before I sip. No biggie; it's clean.

Some nice touches:

Measurements on the side for easy-ish reference. (The -ish is due to a clear choice of form over function, as the marks are formed in the plastic and not drawn on. This means that they will last and don't clutter the design, but it also means that they're quite often hard to see and read.)
Incredibly easy cleaning. It's top-rack safe, but you can also fill it with hot water and a drop of dish soap and let it "self-clean" by whisking, rinsing, and repeating until water is clear.
Easy-open and stay-open top. It stays in whatever position you place it. This means you don't get any green, purple, or whatever gunk on the tip of your nose from the cap falling shut. This should, theoretically, also help provide a way to reduce the drips, but all I can cause it to do is save the drips in the groove of the lid. See slurping, above, for my solution. No matter; this is a small price to pay.
Smooth mixing. Did I make that clear earlier? Seriously, I'm not kidding. I recently added some protein powder to a relatively thick green smoothie, and it blended the powder evenly in seconds. That's probably the hardest challenge I've given it, and it passed with flying colors.

How I use (or have used) it:

Before I bit the bullet and bought a high-powered blender, I'd buy a whole juice such as Naked Juice. Use half the bottle (8 oz.) of juice, add a little more water, mix in powdered greens and protein powder or egg white. Give it a few shakes, throw it in the work bag without fear of opening, store it in the mini-fridge until my morning snack time, remix for a few seconds, and enjoy.
Ready-to-go reduced yolk egg mix. I mix something like three whole eggs with powdered egg whites equivalent to 1.5 cups, an appropriate amount of water, and mix away. (The fact that there's yolk in there cuts down on the frothiness.) Store it in the fridge and use on demand for many uses, including omelets, fried-rice, and breakfast mixes in my rice cooker (oatmeal or rice).
Now that I have a blender capable of whole-fruit/vegetable smoothies, it's the perfect tool for bringing my smoothies with me. I pour half the smoothie into a glass for part of my breakfast and pour the other half in the blenderbottle. Any settling is easily repaired with a few flips of the wrist, and I'm ready to freak out my students with my often-green fruit/veggie smoothie. (They still want me to blend spaghetti and meatballs, but I keep telling them that they're missing the point.)

You can also use it for things like mixing salad dressing, but I've never seen the need. Honestly, with just the uses I've listed above, they've already been a fantastic value. If you make smoothies, protein drinks, or any other drinkables that need to be well mixed, I've seen nothing that beats this. Drink up.

Random Observations

2009-02-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

So here are some tiny things I've noticed lately.

My skin is clearer and smoother.
I swear I can feel muscle on my upper arms. (I hope no one notices me massaging and admiring them.)
My belly is significantly more "jiggly". (I don't admire this in public.)
My hips can no longer touch both sides of the bathtub at once. (Yes, they would actually block the water.)
My belly no longer juts out as if no mere pants can hold it back.
My back fat doesn't stick out over my pants and around my bra... as much.
I don't crave sugary sodas.
I drive by fast food restaraunts without even thinking about them.
I am aware enough of my body to actually feel when I'm stressed out enough that my blood pressure rises.
My cheekbones are starting to emerge.
I can feel my collarbones again.
I see just a hint of that beautiful "cut" line my calves had in my major cycling days.
Clothing that used to fit is becoming just a bit too loose.
Those shirts hanging in my closet gathering dust because they were just a bit too tight are now fitting just about perfectly.
More and more frequently, I like what I see in full-length mirrors.

That's all for now. And that's good enough for now.

A Gentler Path to Running

2009-02-15T15:31:00.000-08:00

OK, so I made it to week six of the c25k a while ago. Technically, I made it past that. But, really, it was torture. So it's no surprise that I stopped. (Well, to be fair, I also began swimming a lot more because I really began to get it.)

And then it hit me: I have a 5k in, um, seven weeks!

Well, now, that could be a problem.

So, I have two options: Restart and continue the c25k or select another way of training for the 5k. (Well, technically I have a third option of not running the 5k in April, but come on... that's not really an option, now is it?)

As much as I like the c25k, it came with one major problem: I would push myself very hard. I have a habit of doing that. I think I've admitted before that I'd rather die than be last on a hike. (Actually, I did get over that with last week's snowshoe hike with the Sierra Club; I decided that being last would, indeed, be a bit better than having to be rescued by a helicopter.) But my point still stands: I push myself hard.

With the c25k, I'm frequently running in the 165-175 bpm range, even reaching up to 180. (That's quite high for someone with a historical max HR of 185 bpm. I'm still working up the courage to truly test my MHR.) According to everything I'm finding, that is actually in the anaerobic range, and I'm not truly building my aerobic base. Instead, I'm torturing myself in a range referred to as "hot", which does build the lactate threshold, but which even very fit people have difficulty maintaing for long. Well, isn't that interesting?

Warning: technical and yawn-inducing stuff follows. Grab a cup of coffee. That is, of course, if you don't already know my blog well enough to have a cup in your hand already.

So, what to do? After reading around, I've decided two things. One, I'm going to start using my heart rate reserve (HRR) to compute my training zones. This makes sense for me because I've always found given heart rate ranges based on percentage of max HR to be too wimpy, and this gives me somewhat higher ranges. Two, I'm going to use HRR training to spend more time in specific HR zones. I'll have hard days where I'm training in zone four (which still should keep me below 173 bpm, so it will be less torturous than before), and I'll follow it up with easy days in zone three, maxing at 159 bpm. (I don't know whether I should do anything other than warm-ups and cool-downs in zone two.)

Today I went out on a zone three run/walk. (That's the (fuzzy) data you're looking at on the right. Yes, there was much more walking than running, but that's OK. (I also went out on a slightly hilly trail, so that was an additional factor.) In the end, I could tell that I worked out, but I was never really breathing hard. In fact, I felt energized when I got in my car, rather than beat down. According to every resource I own and every one I could find on the internet, that means I was in the perfect zone for increasing cardiovascular fitness. (Isn't that weird? To train aerobically, I should never be breathing really hard. Sort of counterintuitive, isn't it?)

So, here's the basic goal: Go for a set distance for each run/walk while maintaining a target heart range. Try to run more and walk less each time. If everything I read (and believe) is correct, I should be able to slowly transition to running the entire distance.

Now, will this get me to running my 5k by April 11? I'm not sure. But I can always run/walk it. More importantly: Will this get me to running at a pace I can actually maintain and enjoy? That, I'm pretty sure, is a yes.

Comments and suggestions are more than welcome. Assuming anyone kept reading to this point. It's OK if you needed a second cup of coffee. I understand.

Crappy Healthful Food: Precursor or Step One?

2009-02-08T21:08:00.000-08:00

A thread gone very wrong over at Gyminee got me thinking about a past food pattern. Let's sum up the heart of that thread as: turkey hot dogs, fruit shakes, and low-calorie snack foods do not make a good diet regardless of calories. There was more, but we'll leave it at that.

So, looking back, I noticed that there's a pattern to my behavior right before going off healthful eating (and back to daily Jack in the Box meals): I stop eating predominantly whole foods and start eating nearly 100% packaged "healthy" crap. Luna bars (yum!), balance bars, 100-calorie snack packs, frozen dinners, etc. Shortly thereafter, I dump all facade of healthful eating (because, let's face it, that really isn't healthful) and go back to the drive-through diet.

(Don't get me wrong. There's a place for those healthful packaged foods, but they cannot and should not make up 100% of one's diet.)

Now, I'm not sure which comes first - the diet dominated by packaged products or whatever flawed mentality I have that leads back to overeating - but I think it's an interesting correlation. Kind of like an alcoholic drinking light beer before dumping back into polishing off bottles of whiskey.

My therapist (in our extremely short time together so far) has surmised that my weight problem is one consequence (symptom?) of my not liking myself enough to take care of myself. Well, that's a significant oversimplification, but you get the idea. (I find it humorous because, when I was a child, my mother told me that I'm overweight because I don't like myself. I responded with something like, "No, Mom, I'm overweight because I really like food. Ah... was I not witty as a child?)

Nevertheless, my point: If one overeats because of a lack of self-care/self-love, can one not begin eating within caloric limits and starve oneself nutritionally? Eliminate all the whole foods out of a diet, and the body and mind, surely, would suffer in a similar way as they would suffer under all fast-food crap. Calories don't enter into it, really.

So, while all calories may be created equal on one level, they certainly are not on another. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Food is fuel. The body needs fuel. Now I'm realizing the greater importance of this: Not any fuel will do. Quality counts.

It's OK to drop back (sometimes)... just don't drop out!

2009-02-02T22:27:00.000-08:00

The title is my new motto. I realized that I had been pushing myself too hard with the c25k. Let's face it, running at 227 pounds is harder than running at 200 pounds. Does that mean that I shouldn't? Heck no. It just means that I need to have a respectful relationship with my body. I push, but listen when it's just hit its limit. Come to think of it, shouldn't that relationship always exist? Even "real" athletes know where the boundary is and don't berate themselves for paying attention to it. Of course, they don't let that boundary sit there; they shove it back.

Back to the point. Before hopping on the treadmill, I had decided to drop back to week six. It had been over a week since my last run, and that one was a bit of a struggle. (Did I even finish it as written?) Turns out that I dropped back a bit further, but I'm going to blame the ridiculously high heat in the gym today, with no fan available. Really, it felt like I was running in a sauna! Nevertheless, I was close enough that I'll stick on week six, day one for a while, then move up.

I hit the pool and instantly felt how drained I was. The last two swims, I was finally "getting" it. The swim method I was learning was beginning to really click. Today? Not so much. As the author of the method would say, I was practicing struggle. So, what to do? Darned right: cut the swim short. I'm learning how to swim efficiently; I already know/knew how to flop around in "freestyle", desperate for air, so I didn't need to practice that, for heaven's sake! No shame in climbing out, though, as I did 500 good yards in twenty minutes before stopping. I'll do more next time.

So, all together now: "It's OK to drop back... just don't drop out!" There, doesn't that feel better?