Calorie Counting

After my 4th or 5th time of rereading Emily's journey to health, I signed up for the 7-day trial of Calorie King. I can already tell I'm going to put up the money when it expires. It's addictive, like playing one of the Dragons of Atlantis games I'm obsessed with on Facebook, but in the real world! I love all the mini-steps.

Today, I went to a cycling class, and had my weekly session with my personal trainer. That, combined with absolutely no snacking (not planned, just happened), put me at a deficit of calories when I got home! In order to reach my target, which I had previously thought was going to be difficult to stay under, I had to consume more than 2000 calories at dinner. While I'm certain I have taken in easily that amount in a binge, it didn't happen tonight. I ate a vanilla skyr (Icelandic yogurt) while I wandered around trying to figure out what I wanted, since pretty much anything was up for grabs.

I ran through everything I could think of in my head- Pizza Hut? Didn't sound unappetizing, but didn't thrill me. Something healthy, then- tofu and quinoa? Same verdict. Whole wheat pasta with some indulgent white cheddar sauce? No, way too heavy. Brownies? Actually sounded decidedly unappetizing- I never thought I'd see the day. I finally came around to the taste of a Red Baron cheese pizza. But surely this would be too much, I thought. When it comes to pizzas, I have a disturbing tendency to eat well over half in one sitting. I looked it up on Calorie King. Nope, even eating half the pizza would barely put a dent.

So I ended up eating half a pizza. I still have over 1000 calories that I am supposed to make up, but I'm just not going to. For starters, it's after 11pm now, and I am usually in bed by this point. Ideally already asleep. And, even though I am excited to proceed with this, I'm not going to kid myself into thinking that everyday is going to fall like today. I'm going to be glad to have that 1000 when the week evens out, I'd imagine.

Still, I like knowing that I can buy the extra calories with a spinning class, when I really need a treat!

I'm also noticing that now that I've eaten the pizza, I feel very heavy and slow. Not in a sick way, like I do when I binge, or eat too much pasta and cheddar sauce (still can't figure out what exactly in that combo unsettles my stomach). I probably always feel this way, and have just never noticed before. Ending on pizza psychologically feels like I didn't accomplish anything towards my weight loss and fitness goals today, when I logically know that it was just the opposite. Something to think about.

Future Fitness and Food

I ran my first 5k on Thanksgiving morning- a recap is to come. For now, a quick look at my upcoming fitness endeavors:

1. The Santa Antonio 5k on Dec. 3
2. 4 Belly dancing classes, courtesy of GroupOn
3. 10 boxing and/or kickboxing classes, courtesy of GroupOn
4. Restarting SuperFit over the Christmas holiday

I'm learning that I really need things scheduled like this to keep moving. I'm glad to have so many options coming up!

At home for a few more days, enjoying having access to my beloved Trader Joes favorites- the vanilla Greek yogurt, the whole wheat mini pita pockets, and the huge tubs of hummus. I have plans to completely purge my kitchen when I get back to Texas, probably my whole house. Likely an epic undertaking that will take several hours of constant work, but I think it will be worth it. If I want to succeed in my apartment, I need to make it replicate the environments where I have succeeded before. I've been identifying foods I need to stock (doing a fairly good job there already, but a few new things need to be added to the rotation), and foods I need to toss (mainly my eggs- I only use them for making naughty things).

Perfection

An amazing thing happened about 10 days ago.

I decided to stop feeling guilty about eating junk food, and just subscribe to Michael Pollan's idea: you can have as much junk food as you want, you just have to make it yourself. I promptly made myself some cookie dough, as I often do. Usually, an entire (half-recipe) batch is gone within about 24 hours. Not good. And I feel guilty from the moment I think of making it to well after I have finished scraping the bowl.

This time, it lasted almost a week. I could go snag a bite or two whenever I wanted to, no strings attached. Most of the time, that more than took the edge off of the sugar craving, and I wandered away, or ate some beans if I was actually hungry.


I also decided that going completely whole hog with vegetables and One Hundred Percent Mega Nutritional Meals Only was not really working about, and I didn't want to spend time in my kitchen. In addition to working harder to keep my kitchen a physically inviting space, I also decided to focus on just getting in there and cooking most meals, regardless of their nutrients. Making alfredo sauce on pasta, or buttermilk pancakes, or what have you, is going to be a sight better than nuking some pizza rolls or filling up on cookie dough because I just want out of that darn kitchen. 

And then I started making reasonably healthy things, based on craving alone. Sun-dried tomato pesto on whole wheat bowtie pasta. Falafel (I think this is the best batch I've ever made!!). Peanut-sauce tofu and quinoa.


Once I took the pressure off of myself to be immediately perfect, I started improving! I've still got a long way to go, but I've already lost two pounds this week. So something is starting to work.

Too Many Cooks

When I started getting serious about turning my health around, I started hitting the books, and more specifically, the blogs, like crazy. I read and read and read and collected tips and made lists of foods to get and routines to start. I gradually filtered my way down to what I follow on a regular basis. Out went a lot of larger, less targeted places, like AOL Health, and even Shape Magazine, and now I always get a little bummed out on weekends because Emily and Angela take the weekends off. I also love Matt over at NoMeatAthlete.

Though there are individual differences, overall these three sites provide me with relatively similar overall health schemes. Something I've started to figure out over the past few months is, I really shouldn't delve any deeper than that right now. As you start delving deeper, you start getting more and more contradictory evidence. How much protein do you really need? Are grains and beans superfoods, or are they slowly killing you? Fruit- yes or no? Everyone has scientific evidence up the wahzoo about why their set-up is best. Everyone has anecdotes and the very compelling story of their own personal enlightenment.

I know of two quick-loss diets with very similar concepts. Stick with veggies and protein most of the time, and occasionally splurge on what you want. In one plan, it's at dinner, in the other, it's one day a week. Both forbid fruit except during the splurges. However, one expressly forbids beans but highly encourages dairy. The other expressly forbids dairy but insists it will never work without beans. At one point early in the summer, I literally wandered around my kitchen starving for three hours because I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be eating. I don't actually remember what I ended up having, but I'm fairly certain it was in violation of both.

Even though I haven't properly stuck to either- one of my favorite No-Starchy-Grains Diet meals is beans and cheese, which has a strike against it in either column- I have felt a little guilty for months every time I have a grain. There is the little voice somewhere wondering if I shouldn't be having it, because it will slow down my weight loss.

Yes, I would love for the pounds to just fall off. There was a brief glorious period in the summer of 2009 when I dropped about 25 pounds practically without thinking about it. Every single morning, I would excitedly rush to the scale and see at least 1, often 2 or 3 pounds off the previous day. I've isolated everything I can think of about that month, and tried to recreate it, and so far, nada. Can't repeat it. I've just come to realize in the past day or so that that drop in 2009 brought me to a state of equilibrium. At the amount I eat, the quality of what I eat, and the amount of exercise I get, this is where I stay pretty darn consistently. It oscillates by about 5-8 pounds depending on how good or bad I am being month to month, but it has not strayed from the same 10-pound range (think 0-10, 10-20, 20-30, 130-140) in two years, save for a few precious days when it dipped down into the 9.5s of the next 10-range, on a few occasions.

To be accurate, I actually realized the equilibrium factor over a year ago. Where I am really going with this is that in the past day I have realized that quick change probably isn't really an option right now. I need to work with what I have to get what I want. One of the things I have right now is a fondness for whole grains and beans, and a distaste for most fruits and vegetables. I am working steadily to improve my palate for the fruits and veggies, but I'm not going to turn up my nose at nutrient-dense grains and beans that have been sustaining highly active and healthy populations for millenia if I know I'm not going to be replacing it with produce.

I'm going to stop delving deeper, and just enjoy my two blogs that I know and love. A few years down the road, when it is a lifestyle and not a goal/transition, I would love to start looking into raw veganism and the "fruitarian" 80-10-10 thing discussed on NoMeatAthlete today. But if I do it now, I either won't eat, or I'll end up self-destructing, figuring that I can't win in any case, so might as well eat junk that I know is junk. I'm going to read NoMeatAthlete a little more carefully for right now, since he discusses and sometimes espouses a lot of the more intense options. I need to stop confusing myself. I need to get to the point where I'm addicted to how good I feel physically (and emotionally) when I treat my body right. Right now, I love how that feels, but I'm addicted to the emotional feeling I get from stuffing my face with things I know are bad for me. So I'm not going to worry about what The Ultimate Best Way to treat my body is. I'm just going to focus on treating it a lot better.

Diet Debates

I don't like the word diet because of the connotations it has, but I suppose I am on one, to a certain extent, and it also does apply to the idea of what one eats as a whole, so there you go.

I was going to post a weigh-in update, but I realized that certain hormonal changes have it out of whack this entire week. So my initial "starting weight" might not be all that accurate either. Well, we'll stick with it for now. Fluctuations or not, the scale showed about 2 pounds, which is a respectable number for a week. It's the recommended one, as I recall. I was rather hoping for a few more, but if I can keep that rate for the rest of the summer I'll be in pretty shape indeed.

Having my beans and cheese each morning for breakfast is proving quite easy. How often do we really change up our breakfast routines, anyway? We generally go for the same thing each morning, so it's been pretty easy to stick with it this past week. Aside from having to keep a much larger stash of beans in the house than before (much cheaper than sugary cereal- bonus), it's going to be pretty easy. I'm trying to ease off on how much cheese I put on top, though. Cougar Gold is a little pricey! And I haven't checked, but I very much doubt that it is a low-fat cheese, as preferred under the Five-Factor Diet. As mentioned before, I am not sticking exclusively to this diet while I'm in weight-loss mode, but I can see it being a major part of the rest of my life, for life-long maintenance of what I plan to achieve this summer.

I do still find myself attracted to many grain options right now, however. These are perfectly fine under the 5-Factor alone, but bump up against the no-grain parameters designed for quicker shedding of weight. I'm currently debating the merits of sticking with non-grain/starch snacks, or going with Five-Factor low-calorie, whole grain and protein ones. My current thought is a compromise. One compromise might be to go with the 5-Factor option most days, and once or twice a week decide to really kill it for a day and cut out the grains (before dinner- I'm leaving dinner as a healthy and portion controlled but open meal). Another option is to simply impose a before-noon rule. No starch or grains before noon, then continue on with healthy and portion controlled and Five-Factor Friendly.

Right now, the biggest temptation is granola and muesli. I've discovered a love for non-fat Greek yogurt (vanilla bean- I still can't abide plain yogurt) in this past week that I never knew existed. I sort of liked it before, but now I'm eating it daily and actually orchestrated an otherwise unnecessary grocery run yesterday because I ran out. Now I'm stocked for at least... a week. If I don't start doubling up some days. It's wonderful on its own, but I'm so intrigued by mixing in Kashi Go Lean Crunch, or even getting fancy and making my own granola a la Oh She Glows. I keep remembering a little snippet of an interview with Peter Jackson. For those of you who don't know, he is no longer the lovable puff-ball of the Lord of the Rings DVD special features. He got healthy! When asked about it, he said "I just got tired of being overweight and unfit, so I changed my diet from hamburgers to yoghurt and muesli and it seems to work." 


Well, Superfit later today (sadly, no Zumba until Saturday- note to self: wear sunscreen this time), so the next few hours will be spent on my writing goal (and very likely the White Collar marathon on USA) instead. 

Home Again

I'm back, and it's time to kick this into high gear. I decided while in Iceland to dedicate my summer to two goals that I have had for a long long time: finish my writing, and get healthy/in shape.

Opening Stats:
Weight: 166.8 
   This is not as much of a net gain as I was worrying I would find upon my return from Paris. Accounting for general weight fluctuations, I estimate between 5-10lbs. I was starting to dip below 160 right before I left for Paris, but it wasn't consistent yet.  
Resting Heart Rate: 93 bpm
   Probably not an entirely accurate number, since I've been up, walking and eating and drinking ice water, for over an hour, and of course because I took it with my fingertips on my wrist, not with a sensor. But it seems about right.
Pant Size: Generous 14
   Bleck. At least I haven't popped back up into a size 16 like that one horrible two month period back in 2009. But closer to moving up a size than moving down a size.


Ultimate Goal Stats:
Weight: 130 and fit
Resting Heart Rate: 60 bpm
Pant Size: 6


First Goalpost Stats:   For June 15, 2011 (two weeks from now)
Weight: 158
Resting Heart Rate: 90
Pant Size: 12


Other Stats I Would Like to Collect:
Heart rate after a 10-minute mile
Heart rate after an 8-minute mile
Time to run a mile with a heart rate under 166 (apparently my target long-distance heart rate)
Body fat percentages
Inches measurements


This morning has started out much as I want most mornings to. I've been planning this for months, since relatively early on in Paris, so it was exciting to finally do it.

1. The first thing in my body was a glass of wonderfully cold water from the fridge filter. At some point ideally I will be able to add in a little lemon juice, because the alkalizing effect on the body and liver and what have you is suppose to be very healthy and excellent for the metabolism. But the cold water itself isn't too shabby! 
2. Second thing in the body is a source of healthy fats, which helps to keep the glycemic index from spiking throughout the day, and especially throughout the immediately following meal. Again, good for health and metabolism. I've been choosing nuts, though this morning, sadly, all I could find in the house were walnuts- definitely not my favorites. They are kind of waxy and look like brains. But I chowed down on a large one anyway, and I'll just make sure we get some almonds and maybe some cashews in the house when my mom and I go grocery shopping this weekend. 
3. Third thing: a properly portioned meal of protein without any grain or starch-type carbs. This morning, I tried out a small plate of vegetarian refried beans with some Cougar Gold melted over the top. It was incredible. I tried the beans and cheese thing once up in Scotland, after a particularly long hike, and it was fine but nothing exciting. I was using a little single-serving tin of spicy vegetarian refried beans, and some shredded mozzarella. Fine, but definitely something I was eating because it was good for me and palatable, not because it was yummy. This morning, highly yummy. Cougar Gold kind of rocks my world. Breakfast was warm and tangy and oh-so-flavorful. Plus, you know, good for me. I saw Trainer Bob talk about using your fists to gage the proper portion size for your carbs and proteins in a meal, so I spooned a slightly generous single fist onto my plate. I'm thinking now that since I'm not including carbs, I should probably allow the full meal serving of two fists, because it seems to have stimulated my appetite rather than sated it. Probably having a small handful of almonds instead of one walnut will help, and maybe I'll make it the serving size I would have if I had normal sized hands (mine aren't bizarrely small, but they are often as small or smaller than the hands of those ridiculously petite and small-boned girls we all know. I am not one of these girls). 

Some things to add to this morning:

1. Interval runs up my hill. I live at the base of an extremely steep hill. I want to do speed bursts up this hill 3 times, multiple times a week, waiting for my heart rate to subside a bit before charging up again. Studies show that going absolutely all out for short intervals and then taking decent rest periods in between is just as, if not more effective than consistent medium effort at building endurance and burning calories. This should aid both parts of my goal this summer- endurance for getting healthy (and that hike), and extra calorie burn for losing weight and shaping up. 
2. Vegetables. I want to aggressively attack my problem with vegetables this summer. I tried zucchini in Scotland, and I've been lightly poking around spinach and broccoli for a while now. I want to go full force with spinach- Green Monsters and baked spinach everywhere you look! Also really excited to try kale chips, and I've got my mom on board, so it's happening. 
3. Lemons in my water, green tea, water bottle, etc. I want to be so hydrated it is crazy. Lemons in the water and green tea both have positive effects on the metabolism, and I'd like a dedicated water bottle that I can carry with my everywhere. But for this morning, lugging around a little glass on a coaster will suffice. 
4. Some additional form of exercise: yoga, push-up routine, AbRipperX, etc. What this is will largely depend on how recently we worked what at SuperFit. e.g. If it is the morning after a day of mat abs, AbRipperX would be both painful and counterproductive. But if I know we are on a schedule of only working the chest on Mondays, and it's Thursday, then a push-up routine would fit in nicely and not jeopardize my ability to do well in Superfit the next day. I suspect yoga videos that stream on Netflix and free ones from the yoga download site place will make frequent appearances. 

I know this seems like a lot. And it is. But I think it needs to be. I'm so sick and tired of feeling run down and yucky. I want to run my darn marathon. I want to knock somebody's socks off in a bikini. I have no job or internship this summer- this is my work. I will write, and I will shrink my size and lengthen my life. This is my job this summer. And hopefully in going about it, I will build some life-long habits that will make this a permanent change. 

Silly Ideas and Smart Thinking

At some point I need to stop reading new nutrition and exercise books. Very reasonable-sounding programs start to contradict each other, and now I've been up three hours and still can't decide what to eat.

This entire week at Superfit we've been doing "rapid fire." This means that, instead of the usual circuit of 4 resistance exercises and 3 minutes on cardio, rinse, repeat, we've done the entire cycle of 12-15 exercises around the room without stopping, going medium weight, heavy weight, ultra-heavy weight, then 10 minutes on cardio. KILLER. Everyone hates rapid fire, but part of the beauty of Superfit is that everyone is in there slogging along together, so we all gripe and moan, and yet we all do it!

As I prepare to head back to non-Superfit land when vacation ends, I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate the best aspects of it into my training plan away from home.

1. I'm thinking that one of the keys is the accountability aspect. They expect me to show up three days a week, and they'll call me out (and sometimes actually call me) if I start slacking. So, work-out partner? Or at least an accountability buddy. 
2. Once I get in, I just put my head down and pound it out until the hour is done. No slacking. I know when I walk in the door that I'm going to kill it and it's going to be awesome. Walking in the door of a regular gym with no pseudo-personal trainer waiting? I might do a pretty respectable job, but it will never reach the same level. So, guided things, perhaps. iPod downloads? Workout videos? Convincing aforementioned work-out partner/accountability buddy to act as a trainer, with the favor reciprocated? With a set time limit or workout goal, so I can't bug out early.
3. Going to the point of fatigue, or at least only a few reps away from it. Working out a different muscle, and then going back to the first. Generally, when I'm doing something by myself, I call it good the second I can feel the muscle. Which is totally bugging out. 

I think this all comes down to the fact that I need someone else calling the shots. If someone tells me to do it, I'll go all out. But it doesn't work as well when I tell me to do it. This is something to work on, obviously. I imagine most of the marathon training, even with a running buddy and maybe even a coach, is going to have to come from within. But for now, it's good to acknowledge my workout weaknesses and come up with some fixes. 

Re-remembered an old favorite blog, and found a new one. Thought I'd share:

No Meat Athlete (the rediscovered)

Daily Garnish

Both of these blogs focus on vegetarian food, and running. The No Meat Athlete guy has started running ultras (the ultimate goal!), and the Daily Garnish lady is a trained vegetarian chef, so you know the food is good! Highly recommend them, along with the aforementioned Oh She Glows and Eating Bird Food.

Back in the Saddle

Totally fell off the running wagon, but started back up last week. Apparently all of my daily biking around campus is doing good for my legs and cardiovascular system, because I decided to try running on the tredmill for 90 seconds, and because Grease was playing on the TV I didn't realize how long it had been and ended up running for 5 minutes straight. Definitely a big step for me.

So, have some good mojo heading back into the world of running!

Also, I discovered a book. I have yet to read this book, as I am currently 83rd on the holds list at the library and it is still in hardback so I haven't purchased it yet, but it looks amazing and has really inspired me to get going. It is called Born to Run, and I highly recommend you check it out. Talks about how running naturally doesn't injure you, rather, the expensive running shoes you buy do, among many other things. The main focus is a tribe whose name starts with T but I can never remember beyond that. Apparently they are legendary for being able to run hundreds of miles at once without breaking a sweat, in bare feet, without getting injured. In the mountainous regions of Chihuahua. 

Anywhoo, it sounds really interesting and exciting and I REALLY WANT TO READ IT. Also, really want to get out and start running! But it's late, it's cold, and I just killed myself at a gym session that involved almost nothing but deadlifts. 

Excuses, excuses, I know. But at least I will go eat hummus like the book suggests.