I'm a chippie hick!

Day one of my Small-Town Summer didn't go very well.  Daniel needed to get to the new St. Mary's building in the evening for a training session after happy hour downtown, but he had taken his bike to work.  So I had to drive downtown and ride his bike home.  Then I was going to ride bikes with the kids to get to the steel drum concert downtown, except I forgot one little snag -- I needed to get the babysitter home, and she lives about three miles away and over the crest of the steepest hill in town.  I couldn't exactly put her on a bike and send her home, so I had to drive her.  That's going to be an issue every week that I go to happy hour.  It also turned out that the concert started a half hour earlier than I thought it did, making us already late, so if we went back home and rode from there -- keeping in mind that Alexander can manage about half my pace at best -- we would have missed the fifty minutes of the concert instead of the first twenty.  And the concert was only two blocks out of our way home, so we drove there, too.  Sigh.

Today went better.  The kids and I rode bikes to Alexander's baseball game and later Alexander and I walked to Kroger, pushing Cecilia in the stroller (which makes a pretty good shopping cart).  I felt like such a granola type (hence the title, Cecilia's bungling of "hippie chick") -- I was walking to the grocery store, I was wearing a tie-dye T-shirt, I put my groceries in tote bags (I actually remembered them!  And not just the one Kroger freezer bag -- a whole bunch of cloth totes!), and I bought Agave syrup.  Daniel drove Mary to her baseball game (unavoidable) and we drove to church (pre-declared).  We went to a restaurant for dinner but it was in town and on the way home.  So there it is.  Tomorrow I have nowhere I have to be except church (cantoring again) in the morning.  So I should be able to avoid using the car after 10 am tomorrow for a few days.

Incidentally, I like Sarah's idea of a mileage quota.  I'm just going to have to figure out how much that should be!

My new favorite

OK - I said that I had ordered two new cookbooks (Baking with Agave Necter and Super Natural Cooking), since I ordered those books, Super Natural Cooking seems to be referenced EVERY time I look something up. OK, yes, my searches seem to be somewhat limited lately - but not really. The other day I was trying to track down a recipe for Black Bean Brownies (I made them years before and they were surprisingly good) and it directed me to this website, which is done by the author of Super Natural Cooking, where she was referrencing Baking with Agave Nectar. So, I have been cruising her website, and it is just so neat. Someone explain to me this combination of cooking and photography. Is it just me? Is everyone else coming across the same sorts of websites? I mean - Pioneer Woman, 101 Cookbooks, and Afrikakelli to name a few. I like the combination. It is like interactive cookbooks.

Liver and Yoga

Wednesday I went to my first real yoga class. I was mildly nervous beforehand because I haven't done a real yoga class since Ms. Curley taught us in high school. I have been doing yoga in my living room - but I figured that couldn't possibly count. My biggest concern was the length of the class. It was 90 minutes long. I am pleased to report that I am pretty good at yoga. Not great - clearly - I have to much bulk to be really bendy - but my form is pretty good and my balance isn't bad. I mean, obviously this was a level 1 class (which BTW isn't quite the bottom rung... there is gentle and gentle plus behind this and only levels 2 and 3 ahead of it. But most of the classes offered are level one). Anyway, I was worried that they would do a bunch of poses that I just couldn't do. But it turned out that everything we did was something I had already done - with the exception of the opening piece, which was a chest opener/modified back bend, but that was done with our shoulder blades supported on a bolster, which we then rolled down our spines and ended with it under our hips. Our weight was mostly supported on the bolster initially and then on the backs of our arms and upper shoulders. It was neat. My hardest thing was - of course - downward facing dog - but there was only ONE person in the whole class (of about 10) who could do it perfectly, and I wasn't the worst in the class. I had no problem lifting my butt into the pose from the ground (which I DO have a problem with at home... it is easier for me to lower myself down into it from standing). Oh - no - wait... My HARDEST thing was just the basic squat that all 2 year olds do and I admire so greatly. I just can't do that, but I made a valient effort. At the end of the class, my muscles were very wubbely, but not too sore. YESTERDAY (the day after the class) I could barely walk I was so sore - but in a really good way. I noticed it mostly in my inner thighs, my shoulders, and my rib cage... Not my abs, my rib cage. That would make sense since we spent a lot of time opening our chests by pulling back and down on our shoulder blades. I signed up to take the next four classes. A new session starts on July 1st, but I haven't yet decided if I will take that or not. Probably.

Then that same afternoon I met with Rebecca. Tuesday night I tried to give blood again, but my iron count was still too low. She wants me to eat liver once a week for the next two months. I said "Do they even sell liver anymore? and isn't it bad for me?" She said that is the biggest myth of healthy eating of this century. The health benefits of liver far outweigh the negative aspects. She said if you like liver you should eat it. So Katie and I looked up liver recipes, I bought a pound yesterday and we are having it tonight for dinner. I'll keep you posted.

Rebecca also said she wants to step up my thyroid support plan of action. She is pretty convinced that that is where I am malfunctioning. She has recommended two other supplements (in addition to the kelp) that should help with my thyroid performance. She also wants me to have the blood panel done again. It has been 18 months since they did it originally, and since I never got the results from the first time she thinks I should do it again. I told her that I wasn't happy with the endocrinoligist that I saw (he was plenty nice enough, but was so fixated on the thyroid nodule - as he should be - that I really didn't think he was listening to me at all. I didn't hear anything about my blood tests until 6 months after I did them and his only comment then was that they were "fine.") so Rebecca wants to recommend one that she knows who does practice more the "art of medicine as well as the science." She pays more attention to the symptoms rather than the numbers, where Dr. Hager is more about the science.

That was about it. Oh! The tree is gone from my front yard. Katie and I came home yesterday and it was gone. So sad. I miss seeing it from my bedroom window at night - but I don't miss the screaming squirrel that would visit.

And another thing

I told the kids today that it's my goal to walk or bike everywhere we go this summer.  We have to drive to get to piano and church, and doctors' appointments (but the orthodontist and ophthalmologist are close enough), and the kids have a zoo camp in Roanoke for one week, but we have nothing else formal on our schedule.  Anywhere we go by elective we can make in walking/biking distance -- if we go out to eat, we can pick places in town.  We can walk to the library.  There's a pool about a mile away we could join instead of going to the aquatic center 3 miles away (a bit long for the kids to bike, then swim, then bike, plus it's hilly all the way).  We can walk to the grocery store, and that will keep us from buying anything non-essential.  I don't go to work, and when I go to campus I already try to bike there.  Anything I think I "need" from Target or elsewhere in Christiansburg I can get online instead or I can do without it -- or I can bike to the mall, since the Huckleberry Trail goes right there.  Am I crazy to consider doing this?  Anyone want to join me in the walk/bike challenge?

Hmmm... going to the movies with Daniel and/or the kids will be tricky.  Daniel and I have a regular sitter now and we were going to try to go to the movies once in a while, and there's a free kids' movie at the local theater every week that I wanted to take the kids to.  My options are:  (a) skip the movies (save money and calories on popcorn), (b) bike there (too long for the kids but Daniel and I could do it if it's not after dark, when the trail is closed), (c) make an exception for movies (definitely cheating), (d) restrict ourselves to movies at the Lyric in Blacksburg (heavy on foreign/political/alternative movies -- still might be an option).  This fall there's supposed to be a new big theater in Blacksburg, just a few blocks away from here -- but this was supposed to be a summer goal!  And, oh, phooey, the gym's going to be a challenge, too -- it's 3 miles also.  I'll have to think about this.

Inconsistent

Isn't it weird how some days I can't stuff myself enough, and other days I have to remind myself to eat?  Yesterday I wanted to eat all day.  Mostly junk.  Today I had a banana with my usual breakfast (so I started out healthy), ate almonds for a morning snack (also healthy), had a tiny but filling lunch (my kids' leavings -- Mary made a really awesome peanut butter, cinnamon, and apple sandwich on whole wheat, then cut a star shape out of the middle of it, leaving five odd-shaped pieces, and I ate four of those; Cecilia had peanut butter on graham crackers and fed me half a graham cracker sandwich, and then I was full), pretty much forgot to snack all afternoon (I walked to the library mid-afternoon, and had to double back on the way home because Cecilia left her blankie-too there, and I came home thirsty but definitely not hungry), ate only one piece of pizza for dinner (Papa John's has a new whole wheat crust, good but not as good as the white, but 6g of fiber per slice! and oddly more filling) and was content with a very small ice cream cone for dessert (and probably wouldn't have thought of dessert if I hadn't been fixing it for the kids).  So unless I'm completely forgetting having eaten some enormous feast in the middle of the day, I'm totally stuffed and still 100 calories short of my goal.

I guess what I should be taking away from this is:

1. More food at breakfast leaves me more satisfied throughout the day;
   
2. Fiber really is more filling;
3. Exercise staves off boredom eating and seems to reset my appetite.

Naturally, this is what all the diet books say.  But it's hard to eat high-fiber foods when there are Oreo cookies and goldfish crackers all over the place!

Ugh

I weighed myself today - not only because it was weigh-in day, but also because I did NO exercise and ate like crap all weekend. I ordered Chinese food on Saturday afternoon and then ate that all weekend. High in salt, high in fat, and (since I got General Tsao Chicken) high in sugar. All bad and it reflected in my weight today. I was two pounds (actually more like 1.5 pounds) up from my last weight last week. My ankles are slightly puffy from retainig water, so I have been drinking lots to try to purge it out of me. Hopefully that will help get my weight back down.

I am overly full right now. We did a team lunch today since it was someone's birthday. We went to Bertucci's. I ordered a Marghrita pizza - and ate half of it. I also had salad and a roll. THEN we came back and had Coldstone birthday cake. I had the smallest piece of my group - but that was still about 1' thick at the top. I feel STUFFED. I should walk around the block to burn it off - or at least to get it to digest through.

Speaking of walking... I finally bought a new battery for my pedometer - but I can't find the instructions on how to set it. It unset itself when I removed the battery and now I can't figure out how to make it work. I am going to see if I can find the instructions online.

I have to get back to counting my calories. I have been pretty consistant about watching gluten and sugar - and so now I have to watch the three combined - gluten, sugar and calories. I am SO inconsistant on my intake unless I am paying attention. I have to figure out a quick and easy lunch that I can make every day. I have breakfast under controll - and dinner for the most part - but unless Katie and I pack lunches together, I still tend to ignore lunch. Since Katie will be out of school in a few weeks, I will be on my own for making lunch. Sigh.

I made agave ice cream yesterday at Sarah's house. It actually tasted too sweet to me, so I need to modify that. It was fun though. I want to try other flavors... It also had the desired result. I ate a single serving (about 1/2 a cup) last night, and DIDN'T have the inclination to go back and eat the whole container. I think I will add almonds next time. I like having something to chew on in my ice cream.

I ordered two new cookbooks that should be delivered today; Baking with Agave and Super Natural Cooking. Took bad I don't actually COOK.

I am taking my first real yoga class tomorrow. I am a little nervous about it.

141.0

That's a pound of weight loss for the week.  And that's from being good for the first four or five days of the cycle, NOT for anything in the last two days -- I've been pretty terrible.  But I've tried to make smart choices in my overeating; at Red Lobster I picked the grilled salmon and shrimp and nothing fried or buttered or pasta.  (The thing is, I've gotten so that's what I prefer at Red Lobster -- the alfredo genuinely didn't look as appealing.  They make a really good sweet and spicy glaze for their grilled fish that I love.)  So even if I'd cleaned my plate (which I didn't) it wouldn't have been as awful as the alternatives.  When we went to the movies the other night we got popcorn, but we didn't eat even half the bag, and we split a diet Coke.

But I haven't been exercising.  My plan this week was to take advantage of Mom and Dad being here and get to the gym or out for a run, but I didn't do that even once.  I did ride my bike to campus one day and walk downtown the next, but that was it.  And now they're gone, and Daniel's out of town, so I have to come up with my own ways to exercise.  Time to make some gym appointments, I think!

138.8

I didn't watch what I ate at all this weekend, and except for housework I got no exercise at all either, so today's weight wasn't a surprise in the least. Today the gym is closed (they're doing some emergency drill there) so I probably won't get my three days there this week. Actually, that's not true. I can make it there on Thursday as well as my usual Wednesday and Friday. It'll just be no fun.

Counting calories

I'm up to day 6 of calorie counting today.  Fortunately I'm not sick of it yet!  My weight dropped a tiny bit after Tuesday and has more or less stayed there since then, so I'm still over 140, but that's what I expected.  The frustrating thing about watching one's weight is that it can fly up five pounds in a week, even when you think you're being not too bad, and then it takes an eternity to creep back down.  But except for yesterday (happy hour -- beer and fries, very bad, and they sent my whole digestive system out of whack) I haven't had too much difficulty sticking to the 1200-1400 calorie range.  Today will be tougher, because it's Saturday and we have fewer things keeping us busy.  That's why I'm here posting, I guess!

My exercise has been wimpy.  I mowed the lawn on Monday, rode my bike to campus and back (a measly four miles) on Tuesday, and walked downtown (not quite two miles) yesterday.  I know it's good to be working activity into my normal routines, but I also know that if I really want to see results I need to have more vigorous activity than that.  It's tougher having company because I don't feel like I can just skip off to the gym at the drop of a hat.  Mom and Dad, on the other hand, have been great about exercise; they've already done two trips down the Huckleberry Trail, for a total of about eight miles of walking.

5K in under 30 minutes

I've been working a bit on my speed and endurance with interval training and today for the first time I managed to complete the 5K routine on the treadmill in under 30 minutes (o.k., only 18 seconds under 30 minutes, but it's a start!). I don't know why I care since I'm not "in training." I think it's just that if I have these goals it makes going to the gym a bit more interesting and less of a painful chore. All I have to do is shave off another, oh, 12 minutes and I could be competitive! Yeah, right.

I didn't weigh myself this morning

I take sort a perverse pleasure in NOT weighing myself on weigh-in day now. I was so religious about it for so long. I didn't weigh myself because I didn't feel like it. Hee hee.

I have been sick for the past several days. SICK SICK on Saturday - but gradually getting better now. I am supposed to give blood tomorrow, but I am going to cancel. I am still not well enough to give sick people my blood. Poor Connor might end up with it! And then my period started last night - which means my low iron count will be even LOWER.

I am trying to get TESSCO to participate in International Talk Like A Pirate Day on September 19th this year. We are trying to come up with a fun day theme and I think a pirate one would be WAY better than another damn "sports day" theme. I keep asking when they are going to do a "scrapbook day" or "craft day" theme!

I can see the future, too

I was totally right that this was NOT the week to pursue a goal weight.  I exercised all three days that we were in Tuscaloosa -- 30-40 minutes on the treadmill every day -- plus we went running at the Crawfords' house and for a long, long traipse around the pastures and creek area another day.  So that was five days of exercise in a week, way better than my average, and I didn't eat horribly (though not great -- I allowed myself some alcohol pretty much every night, and vegetables were in short supply) and I often left food behind on the plate (surprisingly difficult for me).  So explain to me, then, why I gained FIVE POUNDS on the trip???  It's coming off quickly -- I was at 144 yesterday morning (an alarming 146 the night before) and 142.0 today, so at least some of this is water.  But that's still three and a half pounds up from last Monday.  Sigh.

Obviously, I'm back to logging calories.  Yesterday not snacking constantly turned out to be trivial -- I guess I was still feeling gross from the travel.  Today it's going to be trickier to get back into my healthy habits.  I know some snacks are good -- I should eat when I'm hungry -- but it's the mindless boredom snacking that I need to avoid.

See? I knew this would happen!

Didn't I say that one of my problems was that when I got within shooting range of my goal weight, I'd sabotage myself by eating too much, figuring it wouldn't take that much to lose the weight? That's exactly what happened this past week--I had lost all that weight from being sick, so I made up for it by eating out three times, snacking in the evenings too much, and just generally not keeping track of what I was taking in. So it's no surprise that this morning I was back to 138.6.

At one point this week I was flipping through a magazine and came across an article about diet secrets. I expected the usual stuff about substituting foods (which I just don't understand--when I want chocolate chip cookies, I want chocolate chip cookies and eating anything else will just make me eat more and not make the cookie craving go away!) and exercising three times a day ten minutes at a time. Instead it was an article about the National Weight Control Registry--a registry of people who have lost 30 pounds or more and have kept it off for more than a year. The article talked about what people on that registry report as what made them successful and what keeps them successful. Turns out most of them are doing what I'm doing--tracking all of their food, weighing themselves regularly, exercising (more than I do--most get 60 to 90 minutes of moderate to intense exercise daily). I don't know if this is good news or not. It's nice to know I'm on the right track, but kind of depressing when I think about keeping a food diary and exercising daily for the rest of my life. I mean, I know I need to do this but I just don't like to think of myself at 85 years old logging on here to report that I ate the same damn thing for lunch that I did every single day for the past 48 years.

Helllooooooo!

I am happy to report that my semester is nearly complete; I just have to grade a ton of papers by Tuesday at 10 am. NO PROBLEM. Really.

Today is my first day in my "new" office; I asked to be moved to our downtown location in the World Trade Center, and my boss allowed it. Not that he had much choice; I did let him know that I currently have a sweet offer on the table from BGE and that I would be so much happier in the city. Which is really true. Even though I was soaking wet and freezing when I finally made it to the office this morning, I have walked more today than an entire week of being in the office in the 'burbs. I really don't like working in Hunt Valley. So I am sitting here today in my window office on the 25th floor looking out over the harbor at the Science Center and Federal Hill, and I am seriously looking forward to spending my lunch hours walking the promenade or maybe even heading up the street to downtown Brick Bodies.

My health hasn't been too good lately and unless you count running to the bathroom, I have not been exercising. I am on an antibiotic that really bothers my stomach, but it is almost over and it seems to be doing its job.

I have gained so much weight in the last year that I have been out in Hunt Valley it is just awful. I weighed in at 179.6 this morning, and I know last year at this time I was in the low 150s. And that weight is actually down from what it was because I have been sick. HORRIBLE. However, I am looking forward to the mobile lifestyle the move to the city is presenting to me, and I am taking full advantage of it.

And Sarah--those people who would do anything if they had the opportunity simply have broader horizons. We have a trip booked for January to go to Egypt and a lady at work said "Why would you go there?" I didn't even answer because there really is such a thing as a dumb question. And when in the same conversation I told her I'd go back to India in a heart beat, she was shocked. "Why would you go to the same place TWICE?" I felt like saying DUDE YOU GO TO OCEAN CITY TWICE EVERY YEAR.



We're also head to NYC to see theYankees play and to tour the stadium before they blow it up. And I think we're headed to Nashville for what will become our 2nd annual 7/17 trip.

Three miles a day

That's what I've been doing this week. Two at the gym, two walking the dog. And the two days at the gym were more than three miles--I've been setting the "personal trainer" mode to run a 5K, and then there's a cooldown at the end, so it ends up being more like 3.4 or 3.5 miles. I've also been incorporating more hills--the 5K mode does that automatically, but when walking Davey I've been taking a route that goes into the hillier parts of Catonsville. Not that there's a lot of them, but I do what I can. In spite of this, my weight has gone up to 138.2. Not gradually--it hit that on Wednesday, so I think Tuesday's 137 had more to do with Sunday's stomach bug. Today I'm going to try to get to the gym again, but might not make it. We've got commencement this afternoon and I'm scheduled to work from three to five at the alumni table. In the rain. Fun.

The other thing I've been doing this week is reading about Mount Everest. There was a documentary on Frontline about the 1996 disaster, and the Washington Post followed up with a chat with the filmmaker. In the course of the chat, this guy said something to the effect of "if you can run ten miles, you can climb Mount Everest." Geez, why do people have to say things like that to me? I could run ten miles if I worked at it a bit. Therefore, I could climb Mount Everest! Wow! I could climb Mount Everest. How cool would that be? But of course what he meant is that it's not an especially technical climb. You just need a decent level of fitness and endurance to do the climb. What'll kill you is the altitude. High Altitude Cerebral Edema. Low oxygen. Blinding sun. Oh, and the occasional freak storm off the Bay of Bengal. Plus, you fart a lot at those altitudes (which, oddly, doesn't make it into these documentaries). And that doesn't even get into the insanity of creeping along a knife edge ridge at 29,000 feet. I'd rather row a boat across the Atlantic, thank you very much. Or ski to the North Pole. I've decided that any insane activities I take on from now on must meet the minimum standard that if I get into trouble, a burly guy with a rope and a helicopter can save me. That just won't happen on Mount Everest. I'm not sure where this puts my Antarctic ambitions--there was that story a couple of years ago of the scientist who needed medical treatment who couldn't be rescued because it's just not possible during the winter there. Maybe I'll just do the usual cushy cruise ship in the summer when I'm 67 years old and retired.

But it's an interesting question--why are there certain types of people in the world who just like to do insane things? Not just mountain climbing, but any sort of activity that pushes your mental and physical limits. Some people seem to be attracted to those things, and some people are perfectly content to not really push anything. I think we have a blog full of people in the first category. I think any one of us, given the opportunity, would want to at least TRY to do something difficult and out of the ordinary. Like touring India by train. Or joining the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Or working on a living history farm. Or moving north of the Arctic Circle in February (with three kids no less!). At the gym on Monday there was the usual bunch of women coming out of the pool and they were talking about Burma and China, then talking more generally about Asia and one of them said something about not having any desire to go to that part of the world. Then a couple of them agreed that maybe Japan would be o.k. And one person mentioned how she would never in a million years go to India. They all agreed. And I was listening to this thinking "I'd go to any of those places. Tomorrow if someone offered." There are only a few places anywhere in the world where I just wouldn't set foot, and that has more to do with the possibility of getting shot than anything else. I'd go to the base camp for Mount Everest. Tomorrow if I could.

Sarah is correct ... figures

I'm expecting a crazy day on Capitol Hill with meetings going until probably 8 p.m. or later tonight ... meetings I get to cover. So yes, I took a break to read the blog. Since Sarah rarely answers my e-mail I can come here to find out what she's up to. haha

I'm thinking about going for a walk although that might include bulldozing tourists, which I hear burns mega calories. haha

So I started back yesterday on a serious routine. I went to Williamsburg over the weekend and took a 14-mile bike ride on Sunday. It was glorious and I felt great afterward. It's what I needed to refocus.

While there I also bought a National Park Service pass (I'm going out to California this summer to hike in Yosemite etc.) so I can zip down to Shenandoah on the weekends to hike. I've got a great hiking book. If anyone ever wants to join me, let me know.

I was going to exercise last night but took the opportunity to do some grocery shopping at Wegman's instead. I have to admit I love looking into other people's carts to see what they're eating. There are still so many people with carts filled with white bread, frozen french fries, american cheese and so many other processed foods. Not a fruit in sight. My cart last night was filled with fruits and veggies and lots of yogurt. I looked at the beer but didn't buy any. I'll drink it if it's in the house and I want to give it up again for a couple of weeks as part of my "getting back on track" plan.

Now it's time for the exercise. It will be late when I get home tonight but I'll at least ride my bike on the trainer and hopefully get in some weight work. Then I'll collapse. HA

The tusks aren't looser here

because we're still in the Middle East, but we'll go hunting tomorrow afternoon.  My weight yesterday morning was 138.5, so I'll pretend that's official -- it's better than last week's anyhow.  Not from any good behavior on my part, though!

When we arrived here last night Daniel persuaded me to go running.  It was a terrible run for me -- according to my Nike+iPod I haven't been running since the beginning of March -- but I got through the whole 5k in about 30 minutes, with a slight pause in the middle to catch my breath. Afterwards I did 30 push-ups but I never got around to doing my crunches.  Today I am a bit sore, but nothing terrible; still, I don't think I'll be going right back out for another run today.  I may try to go out for a walk.

Cecilia is looking very pleased with herself today!  She woke up disoriented during the night so she spent the last few hours in our bed.  When she woke up for the day (before either of her siblings and even before Daniel and me, because she was the only one who went to bed at a sensible hour) I told her, "Happy birthday!"  Once it registered that it was REALLY her birthday (she's been talking about it since February) she gave a huge, happy smile.  I asked her how old she was ("Tue!"  No, you're three today.  "FREE!") and she grinned even more broadly.  I don't think she has stopped smiling since.  What a cutie.  We're having a little party for her this afternoon -- good thing, because I haven't had enough junk food in the last two months.  Not.  Sigh.

Not entirely gone

OK OK! I will do a post. I have been trying to cut back. Seriously, I have been focusing more on being LESS obsessed with this weight issue. I do read the blog still - and post comments as Sarah said - but I am beginning to think that Rebecca is right - that this forum for me ISN'T entirely healthy. Clearly my issues are not the same as the rest of you. What Emily posts as exessive calories (1800) are below by BMR - but my brain is still pre-occupied with the obession of our society that less is better - and so I immediately feel inferior because the 1800 calories I DIDN'T manage to eat yesterday was excessive and no wonder I am fat and disgusting! See - It isn't healthy.

I agree with Vicki however, more and more I am noticing unhealthily THIN people. Clearly there are still obese people that I worry about (especially the ones that are under 20) - but, I think our society is mistaken to only see fat people as unhealthy. We live in a world SURROUNDED by mixed messages! I mean - everyone is obsessed with being smaller and thinner - but meals at restaurants are unnaturally large! Food that is readily available is loaded with fat (or the LOW fat stuff - loaded with sugar). Then we are taught that fat and sugar are bad - but not really told why. We just blindly follow the "bad" mindset - and feel BAD everytime we eat something we enjoy.

Sorry - I am ranting. I don't mean to be. Maybe I will stand in tree pose by my desk for a few minutes and breathe. Hee hee. I really do like the yoga thing. I really DO wish I was more bendy - but I totally love the breathing thing.

137.0

So Mom's off at the OLLI office, and Emily is off hunting elephants in her pajamas, and Katie hasn't been seen in these parts in ages, and Amy seems to only be posting comments and Julie is giving finals and working her butt off since being promoted, so it's probably just me reporting my weight today, and most likely Vicki reading it. And I probably shouldn't bother reporting my weight since I spent all day Sunday sick to my stomach and not eating a bite, so I have no idea if that 137 will hold for long. Yesterday morning's weight was even better--I weigh 136.2 when I have no food or drink in my system. I went to the gym in the afternoon yesterday and decided to use the elliptical since it's less strenuous than running, and even that nearly did me in. I stuck it out the whole time, but lordy, I was weak and miserable!

Happy birthday, Cecilia!!!

Ah, the reality of it all

So I've been feeling a bit fat, bloated or some variation thereof lately. God knows, I should be feeling that way because I haven't been dedicated to a routine. I just recently realized that as much as I loved the routine it was, well, too routine. I've been searching out some different things to eat -- notably a bit more healthy calcium -- and some alternatives to oatmeal -- good cereals. Sometimes you just need a change of pace. 

But I've decided after this weekend -- I'm going to Williamsburg to hang with friends -- that I'm going to get back into a serious routine starting Monday. I really do want to get a pedometer and count my steps when I'm on the Hill. I run all over the Capitol -- which is cool BTW -- and I must be doing 20,000 steps a day (Tues-Thurs). I've tried to stop taking elevators, too, so I'm just running the steps. 

So, anyway, I've been feeling fat and isn't it sometimes funny how you can be snapped out of a rut. I went to see a play last night at the Shakespeare Theater (Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis -- very good) and when I was walking into the theater I saw a woman from behind in a dress that revealed all of her shoulders down to the middle of her back. She was deathly skinny. Scary, skeletal, sick, unhealthy skinny. I immediately thought "I'm so glad I'm me." Sure I've gots a few extra of those things we call pounds but that's OK. The clouds parted, I saw the light. 

Still that hasn't changed my mind about getting back onto a stricter exercise routine beginning next week. I am taking my bike to Williamsburg but am not predicting a huge amount of real exercise but it's the right step. 

How far ahead can you bank exercise?

Yesterday I had to walk to and from the car repair place, and I had a trip to the gym as well, so I hit over 15,000 steps on my pedometer.  Today the kids had a field trip (a hike and then Field Day -- I participated in the tug-of-war and in the sack race, which gets your heart pumping!, plus I was all over the site chasing after kids) and then I walked to and from downtown for happy hour (no WAY was I going to try to park downtown -- it's graduation night) so I'm approaching 16,000 steps on my pedometer without even having made it to the gym.  On a typical gym day I barely top 10,000!  So I'm more than a day ahead at this point -- or maybe it's more like I'm still many years behind.  Hmmm.  Except for these two days I haven't been that active this week, so I guess I can't bank these for Mother's Day.  Oh, well.

Yesterday I counted calories.  Mary made brownies on Wednesday so I had small brownies at mid-morning, after lunch, and after dinner.  That bumped my calories up rather dramatically!  I need to remember to keep my small dessert to ONE a day, not three, and not to snack otherwise.  I was around 1800 for the day.  Today I haven't counted (too weird of a day) but I suspect I wouldn't like the number any better.  And yesterday I felt like I wasn't really eating all that much -- no wonder my weight goes up when I don't exercise!

Exercise

This has been one of those weeks where getting to the gym was difficult. I've had back to back meetings most days (which is unusual for me--normally my time is pretty flexible) and have only managed to take a lunch break to get to the gym once. So I'm thinking of this week as a dry run for the summer, when ALL of my lunch breaks will be used to take Claire from camp to home. Last summer I went five weeks without one trip to the gym, and it took me forever to get back into shape after that.

So on Wednesday I stayed late and went to the gym after work. This isn't an ideal solution since it messes up the evening schedule of dinner, homework and bedtime (especially on days when Brian has to get ready for work) so I can't plan that three days a week. Getting in early isn't really possible either since I'll be bringing Claire with me on my way in. Yesterday Davey helped me out--Brian took him out for his evening walk and Davey went only to the corner of the road, then turned around and came home. He wanted ME to walk him apparently. As soon as he came in the house he started hounding me (pun? literal? hard to say) to go out, so I ended up walking him about three miles. Today I have a lunch to go to, so I'm not sure if I'll just sneak in a workout after that or if I'll try to get out for a run this weekend. I always mean to get up early enough where I could run out the door as soon as Brian gets home on Saturday or Sunday, but my motivation for getting up and moving early on a weekend is zero. I might have to this weekend and all summer, though, if I don't want to get out of shape again.

Tuesday again

Hi! I was 153.5 this morning--nothing to brag about! I have fallen into the laziness mode, too. It has been weeks since we've walked. So we'll try to get back to it tomorrow, and then I am more motivated to watch what I eat because I hate to undo the good I did by walking!

A year's worth of weight

I just spent the last, oh, well, a long time going through my Tuesday posts from the past year because I've been feeling like at the start of all of this I got down to my goal range of 130 - 135 pretty steadily, then gained enough of it back to be OUT of that range, but I couldn't remember when exactly that happened.

I still don't know, because I only went back for a year. I thought for sure it's been less than a year since I got up above 135, but I was wrong. A year ago (well, May 8 to be exact) I weighed in at 139.2. And except for the couple of weeks when I was on South Beach, when I got down to 136, I've pretty much stayed in that 137 to 142 range for the whole year. I gain a few pounds, then lose it, then gain them, then lose them. It's not exactly a yo-yo because the string is too short. But I can't seem to stick with the losing long enough to get back under 135. I don't remember when I was last at that weight. And mostly my problem seems to be laziness. It's just too easy to give into temptation and eat whatever I want, or go for a week or two without exercise. I think partly the problem is I get within shooting distance of 135 and think "oh, I'm so close, it'll be easy to just lose those two or three pounds--I should be back to 135 in a week or two" and so that kind of gives me an excuse to stop trying. It makes no sense, but I guess I figure that it'll be so easy to lose a couple of pounds that I don't really have to try *right now.* I have to get out of that mindset. For the past few weeks I've been very diligent about exercising regularly and not snacking at night--my two weaknesses. Now that I am (again) conceivably within two or three or four weeks of hitting that 135 mark, I can't let myself give in to laziness.

The other thing I noticed reading through the whole year that I didn't notice when I was reading from week to week is what a great job Emily has done with weight loss. She was up to over 150 for a while there, and has steadily brought her weight down to the mid-130's! I guess I didn't realize that she had been at that high point relatively recently (back in October).

138.4

And Emily and I are officially swapping places this week, it looks like! Man, I was hoping to meet at the same weight next week with us both around 137. Think you can manage that, Emily? Two pounds for you, a pound and a half for me. No Mother's Day breakfasts in bed for us.

139.0 - Yikes!

I was 139 this morning!  My weight has been creeping up.  I haven't been exercising NEARLY as much as I should.  Yesterday I did, at least, have a gym appointment, but then Cecilia had a one-day stomach bug and we couldn't go.  And we had company last night, people we wanted to impress (a postdoc Daniel is trying to lure here),  so we had cheese and crackers, salad, shrimp with pasta, and Ozark pudding with ice cream.  Tons o' calories.  Oh, and wine.  But Daniel and I have now put a moratorium on buying any more alcohol for the month of May -- we've been drinking beer and cider steadily since long before Amy came to visit, and we went nuts at the wine festival this weekend (buying, not drinking -- we didn't actually drink that much), so we're both pretty appalled at ourselves.

We're going to Alabama next week and I'll have a lot of time on my hands, so unless the weather is terrible the whole time I have no excuse for not going running.  And I do have one more gym appointment this week.  But I'd better find some time other than that once to squeeze in a workout!  And I'd better start watching what I eat!

Short torso

I was just looking through a Lands End catalog and saw that they sell bathing suits for short torsos--a nice change since I've gotten used to seeing long torso bathing suits and it always bugged me that they didn't have suits for people with the opposite problem. So I measured myself and found out that my torso length would fit a size four or six regular (yeah, right), but is a perfect size ten short torso. I wish I could justify getting a new bathing suit so I could have one that actually fit me!

Starvation mode and metabolic rate

We've all heard the expression "starvation mode" in regard to dieting, but I began wondering what exactly is meant by that. It's not a phrase I ever heard used until about five or six years ago, and usually you hear people using the term when they are having difficulties losing weight or have reached a plateau in their weight loss. When they ask for help, almost invariably someone pipes up with "be careful not to eat too little or your body will go into starvation mode and you won't lose weight." I'm pretty sure we've even said that on this blog at various times.

I have to admit that I've always been a bit skeptical of the idea that eating too little will make you STOP losing weight or even start gaining weight. If that were true, there wouldn't be so many dangerously thin people in Africa who actually *are* starving, would there? And I get it that your metabolism will slow if you consistently eat less than you need to maintain your weight, but a slower metabolism isn't a stopped metabolism, and just how slow is a slow metabolism anyway?

So when I looked into it I found this great explanation that actually cites research and not just anecdotal information. It defines "starvation mode" as what happens when you consistently eat 50% or fewer calories than you need to sustain your basal metabolic rate. Amy talked about BMR back in January or thereabouts and gave a formula to generally figure your BMR (your weight multiplied by ten), but I found a much better calculator online that takes into account factors that influence your BMR--your metabolic rate slows as you get older, your height affects your metabolism, and women have lower metabolic rates than men (largely because we have less lean muscle mass). That calculator is here and using it I find that I have a BMR of 1379.6 (o.k., that's only 11 calories fewer than if I just multiplied my weight by ten, but the effect is magnified with weight--when I figured my BMR for my top weight of 158 pounds, it was more than 100 calories different from just multiplying 158 x 10). So for me to go into starvation mode, I'd have to consistently (that is, not just for a few days, but over a period of weeks or months) eat 690 calories or less per day. Not something I've ever done, at least not since college, and not something I'd ever WANT to do now!

But here's the thing--even if I did eat that little, I still wouldn't stop losing weight. According to a study cited in the link above, your metabolism will indeed slow, by as much as 40% if you are eating that little, but no one in that study ever stopped losing fat until the end of the study when they reached a level of 5% body fat.

Of course, there are really nasty side effects that go along with really starving yourself, so no one is advocating extreme calorie restriction of this sort as a good way to diet. But people who talk about starvation mode in terms of their not-so-successful attempts at weight loss are almost undoubtedly NOT in starvation mode.

Another study cited in that article discovered that your BMR actually increases with one or two days of a starvation diet, but the increase is small--the same increase that you get from overnight fasting. There are also differences in how a lean person versus an obese person loses weight during starvation--a lean person in starvation has about 28 - 36% of their weight loss from losing body fat and 64 - 72% from loss of fat-free body mass, while an obese person will lose a larger percentage of body fat (roughly 50/50).

The ultimate recommendation of the person who wrote that piece is that you figure out the maintenance calories for your goal weight and eat that each day, unless that gives you a greater than 1000 calorie deficit each day, in which case she recommends meeting somewhere in the middle.

I think one reason I liked this article so much (besides the fact that it didn't go into the usual useless anecdotal and opinion stuff) is because unwittingly, that's pretty much what I was doing/have been doing to lose weight. When I consistently kept my caloric intake between 1200 and 1400 calories, I'd lose one to two pounds a week.

A bit more on BMR--this is the rate at which your body would burn calories if you stayed in bed all day. Activity doesn't increase your basal rate (except long term by increasing your lean muscle mass), but it'll increase your actual calories burned. I suspect one reason why people who are controlling their intake have problems losing is because they are overestimating their activity level. Sitting at a computer eight and a half hours a day, sitting and reading for an hour or more each night, sitting at meals, sitting while scrapbooking--none of these activities burns significantly more calories than sleeping. A bit more, but not much. Other more-active activities that eat up a portion of my day also aren't that impressive--carrying laundry baskets up two flights of stairs is good activity, but only lasts 30 seconds. Bathing children involves 15 second bursts of activity followed by, you guessed it, more sitting. And the actual exercise I get only lasts 30 - 45 minutes a day. A nice calorie burn while I'm at it, but that's only a very short time in my day. So I don't think I'm actually burning that much more than my estimated BMR each day. On a day I don't go to the gym, I might burn 300 calories a day through normal activity on top of my BMR. Up that another 350 on a gym day. And this seems to be borne out in practice--when I go through these periods of not exercising, I gain weight if I eat anything more than 1700 calories a day. Since you have to have a 3500 calorie deficit to lose a pound, my "good" weeks (eating 1300 calories daily, burning 2000 calories three days a week and 1700 the other four days) end me up with a 3700 calorie deficit, again borne out in practice--when I stick to my good habits, I lose a pound a week.

More thoughts on BMR--the calculator I used is obviously not able to check the other things that can have an effect on your BMR. Your BMR can also be affected by your thyroid functioning, your lean muscle mass, heat and cold, stress, malnutrition, etc. But except for using trial and error to figure out your metabolic rate (essentially what I've done), there's no easy way to measure these things. There is, however, a medical way or two to measure this, and it surprises me that more doctors aren't doing this to see exactly how a patient's metabolism works. You'd think this would be a really useful measurement to have for patients who want to lose weight. But maybe it's expensive, or maybe particularly slow or fast metabolisms aren't significantly off the norm (that is, someone my height, weight, and age with a slow metabolism might burn only 50 calories fewer per day than I do--not enough to have a huge effect on weight loss attempts in the long run) , or maybe the way to speed up your metabolism (exercise, especially involving weight training) is so well known that it doesn't seem worthwhile to check since they'd recommend the cure anyway for ANYONE trying to lose weight.

So there you have it--I wasted most of a day a couple of weeks ago looking all this up and reading studies that made very little sense to me and didn't seem to involve anything at all in the way of poop analysis, all to tell me what I already suspected--that starving people lose weight.

Go Calcium Go!

The other evening I happened by a program on Discovery Health about a study on whether a high calcium diet actually helps you excrete more fat. The scientists, two women in Denmark or some such Scandinavian country, had to collect people's poo over a period of time then do all kinds of funky things to it. They tested the differences in high-calcium (low-fat calcium) vs. lower calcium diets. Their conclusion -- if you pump your body full of low-fat calcium it will latch itself onto fat cells and drag them (kicking and screaming) out of your body. Those who ate the high calcium diets excreted 2x more fat than those on the same diet of calories but minus the calcium. One guy ate about a quart of yogurt a day.  My main calcium is yogurt and now I figure I may eat two a day. 

Lose ten pounds in one week!

I was going through the latest issue of National Geographic Traveler and read an article about a guided trip to the North Pole--the company drops you on a floating island 1 degree from the pole, then you ski the rest of the way, about 70 miles. Doesn't sound too bad, except that because you're on moving ice, those 70 miles can be a lot longer--if you're going one direction and the ice is moving another, it can be like skiing on a treadmill, where you're constantly moving but not moving forward. Add to that the fact that you're dragging a sledge with all of the stuff you need for the week, and scrambling over large boulders of ice, and crossing cracks in the ice over open water (of course the group is also dragging a kayak just in case) and what this amounts to is burning 10,000 calories a day, but you're only taking in 5,000 calories. It takes 7 days to do this trip, giving you a caloric deficit for the week of 35,000 calories--what you need to lose 10 pounds.