Year of Adventures.... Sort Of

Looking back to the end of last year and beginning of this year, I didn't have much in the way of resolutions. I did, however, express one:  Try to have an adventure at least once a month. An adventure, defined loosely, was doing something I had never done before - something hard.  At least, hard for me.

How did I do?

I almost blew it right away.  In January, on the last day of the month, I went running on the mall, right from work. Pretty weak, I'd say, but it counts.  I did this a couple more times this year, but after my dog was cleared for exercise, I mostly have gone running with him.

February was Rocky liberation, and we celebrated with a hike in Greenbelt National Park. My first time to the park, and Rocky's first hike. It was splendid, and long enough to be really physically challenging for us both.

March was different. I did something social, and hard. I went to a "meetup group" - an event set up with an open invitation on the internet.  This was very hard for me, but actually I ended up doing a few of these this year. In March, I attended the Quantified Self group - the same group I gave my talk to in November. I also attended a Data Science DC group, where there was the author of Cool Infographics, something which I am very interested in.

In April, I did a "Meetup Group" hike, to see the cherry blossoms. It ended up with just a couple of us, but it was fun before work.  I also did the Detox Diet, (which I wrote about in May).  Not something I intend to repeat, but an interesting adventure, never-the-less.

May began the 5K circuit, starting with the Takoma Park 5K. It wasn't my first time, but it was the first race in two years, the first of the season, and I'm counting it as my adventure.

June, I went to the Congo with my family. Adventure enough for anyone.  Not your normal vacation destination. It was particularly good for me to be on a vacation where I could influence nothing, I was just along for the ride.

July was the Annapolis Women's 5K. My first race with a friend. Lots of fun.  I also did two other Meetup hikes, places I had never been before. I was not overwhelmed with the company, but it was good to get out and be at least a little bit social.

August was The Attack of the Killer Tree, and my first ride in an ambulance, my first metal stitches. Not an adventure I want to repeat, but it kept me from the Flee the British 5K I had been planning to run, so I have to count the ambulance ride as the adventure.

September I joined a new gym, and ventured out in public in workout clothes. Before then, I had only worn those clothes to my other, private gym, and only for the 6 am workout. Now, I'm strutting around running errands in my workout clothes downtown.

October was three adventures:  two 5ks and sailing on the Pride, as well as ER trip #2 from slicing off a piece of my thumb with a mandoline.

November was the last 5K race of the year, and my QS talk which was posted on the internets.

December - what have I got to show for the month? I'm doing new stuff at the gym - including bench pressing with the big weights! - and the rowing machine, and pull-ups.  I think that will have to count.  I don't want to count ER trip #3, the cardiac false alarm. I'm sorry I brought it up. Let's go back to the subject of planned adventures.

What will I plan for next year? I'm going to take a vacation to San Francisco for one, in June. I think I need more travel, will have to figure it out.  But I think I achieved my goal, overall, of pushing myself to new horizons this year. It is certainly NOT time to rest on my laurels, but instead move forward.

Excelsior!

Silly little goals

I've been trying to meet my step goals on the Jawbone every day (except for the days I blow it off completely because I'm so far from the end at night and it's raining and nasty out).  So last night, I checked it, estimated how far to walk the dog, and came in and got ready to go to bed. I finally checked it again just before climbing in -and I was 200 steps short!  So I decided to go for it-I strolled in a circuit around my kitchen, living room and office. The really amusing part was how the dog faithfully trailed after me every single step! I always hand him a treat after I climb into bed, and so he is especially velcro'd to me as I go through bedtime motions just so he doesn't accidently miss it. So about five minutes of the two of us strolling in a circle made the goal. The phone lit up and the goal bar did its little spectacular dance. 

I'm not at all sure 200 steps has any impact on my health. However, I think maintaining a baseline of activity does have an effect, and the little reinforcements from the phone encourage making the goal consistently.

Little Motivations

It's cold, it's dark, and there are special events every day. I need help getting moving. I like exercise, except for the getting-off-the-couch and the first-five-minutes parts. It takes a nudge to get me going.

Strategies I'm employing:

I have a dog!  He nudges, literally. And he is much better behaved (ie, sleeps more versus looking for something else to eat) if he is tired and not bored. I have a small part of my yard fenced, so I do NOT have to put on the leash and walk. But he really really likes it, and lets me know by inserting his nose between my hand and whatever I'm doing. So out we go.

I'm continuing with personal training, though now I have a new gym. It was good to change it up, and I like the more social scene at the big gym.I certainly would NOT have gone to the gym several times in the last couple of months, except that I have to pay if I simply no-show.  I am planning ahead and cancelling more often, though, on fairly flimsy excuses.  I know I work much harder for the trainer than I would for myself, but I need to get the trainer to push slightly less hard. I don't think she is used to working with old folks like me, and I know what my body is doing pretty well, so I will be speaking up some more.

Goals on my fitness tracker. This is silly and trivial, but it's part of what keeps me moving. I lowered my step goal to within reach, but not a slam-dunk:  9,000 steps a day. Now, the Jawbone app gives me kudos when I make it, and for making it several days in a row - a "streak". Getting that little message has kept me moving more. Last Friday, for example, I was less than half way there in the evening. I went out with the dog, in the dark and cold and light rain, and we took a circuitous walk through the neighborhood - two and a half miles, about 45 minutes. Without the quantitative goal, it would have been shorter. Without the dog, it wouldn't have happened (or else it would have been inside on the treadmill, I suppose, maybe with the ipad).

All those Norwegian genes in my body are expressing themselves by sending messages to every cell:  "Slow down and bulk up! Or else you won't make it to summer!".  I read recently a theory that depression is an adaptive mechanism, to get you through a cold, dark period with scarce food - there is an evolutionary advantage to wanting to lie in the dark and not move.  What makes us different from the animals is we so not have to behave the way our genes suggest. But it definitely takes more effort. It's good to have some immediate, little, nudges and feedback rather than have to rely on longer term, more abstract goals.

Double Yikes! I'm on the Internet! (There will be comments.)

A video of my QS talk got posted to the quantified self blog. It's very difficult to watch myself, because video me is not quite the way I think of myself. And now, I'll have to read comments on it.  It's less than 10 minutes long.

They asked me to do this again and I agreed. I aspire to perform like a really good TED talk. Feedback would be welcome.
Nan Shellabarger: Long-term Weight Tracking from Quantified Self on Vimeo.

I have other things to write about - I'd like to write more often, but this is the big news for the moment.

I Talked in Public About my Weight! Yikes!

There is this thing: Quantified Self. They even call it a "movement". Their tag is "self-knowledge through numbers".  Clearly this is my tribe. We get together every few months, and do show and tell where we answer three basic questions:

• What did you do?
• How did you do it?
• What did you learn?

So in front a group of about fifty strangers, I got up and walked through some of my numbers.  It was videotaped, and there is a chance that will end up on the internets. But preparing for the talk took me back through some of my history, so I thought I'd share it here.

This was also almost the first time I gave a public talk without a word-for-word script. I wrote a word-for-word script, read it out loud, and it was way too long and way too... hmmm... I'll say "suitable for a Weight Watchers meeting" - too personal and not all about the numbers. I wrote another script, shorter and tied to just things that can be deduced from the things I'm showing. Then, I boiled it down to a few main bullets for each slide-what do I want the audience to focus on in each slide? I had the paper with the bullets in my hand while I talked, but I think I did fine without ever looking at it. I'd love to see the video to get feedback on my performance.

What follows are the slides I used, with my main points as a caption for each.

Hi, I’m Nan Shellabarger

·         Desk-bound policy wonk by day.

·         Used to be hands-on data analyst, still looking for patterns in data

·         Personal data for a long time

·         Since QS, going past the collection and visualization of the data,
trying to focus on what did I learn?

I’ve been collecting my weight data since 1988

·         In 1995, started this very spreadsheet in excel

·         Daily data, and calendar week averages

·         Manual at first, now Withings wifi means copy cut and paste

·         Two big losses, second one slower, gradual increases with intermittent corrections

·         The story of these years, much meaning to me

Adding context for you

·         Green arrows are fun things I challenged myself to do

·         Clouds are health issues, major but not life threatening

·         Red explosions are major life disruptions

·         These cataclysms mean attention elsewhere,
but a year or so later, a renewed focus on getting in shape

I’ve been collecting exercise data since 1995

·         Each year a separate chart, lined up manually here, through 2008

·         Arbitrary scale, collected manually, more color means I moved more

·         Clearly a lot of exercise when losing weight, but not tight

·         In 2010, got the BMF, Sony Betamax exercise equip
Superior technology, lost in marketplace, highly accurate calorie counter

·         Sadly, broke this July

·         Today, Garmin vivofit and Jawbone UP24, but no good for calories so haven’t done much with them yet.

Zooming in on the last five years

·         Two separate charts manually lined up

·         Gradual increases followed by sharp corrections apparent

·         Less than ten pound range – very stable

·         Calories burned: dark line is average daily calories for a calendar month

·         Average went down when I lost weight

·         Not much relationship to the gain / loss cycle

Made heat maps one snowy day last February

·         Took 4-5 hours to wrangle the data into this format

·         Sleep more on weekends

·         Exercise more on weekends, and Mondays too

·         Tracked food through MyFitnessPal

·         Clear relationship between periods of food tracking and weight going down

Whole lot of work

What have I learned?

·         Not a simple machine

·         Not just an engineering problem of calories in and out

·         Benefiting and suffering from homeostasis

·         Managing my food is a whole lot of work but essential

·         Fond of exercise, except for the first five minutes, need motivation

·         Its ok to put energy elsewhere when you need to

Races!

I have done a couple of 5K races, bracketing the weekend on the Pride.  I'm happy with what I did in each of them - they were fun!  I'm into it for the party, and to give myself a goal. There is no doubt without a goal I'm far more likely to bail out on a training run, with no specific accountability tied to each time I have to decide whether to get out there, or stay inside and drink more coffee.

Of note, generally I actually like running while actually doing it.(As opposed to liking how I feel afterwards.)  I have bad knees, a bad back, allergies, sinus headaches, miscellaneous aches and pains, and I want to just give myself a pass.  Often, often, the first five minutes feel bad, and then, gradually, the aches and pains lessen rather than grow, I warm up and get looser, and want to keep going.  This happens over and over, and yet knowing that doesn't necessarily make it easier to get over the hump of getting out there and starting.

The first October 5K was the Historic Congressional Cemetery's annual Dead Man's Run.  I have signed up for this event twice before, and NOT run it for a variety of reasons. This year, I was determined to actually run!

Before the race

It is a fun event, with people in costumes both running and cheering, and music at the start. It's also mostly flat, which is really nice.  Also, I could listen to music while running through my ipod - some events do not allow headphones, to increase situational awareness on the track.

At the starting line

This is a fun family event. Notably, it's the only one I've done in the evening, rather than very early in the morning.

The cemetery is on a bluff over the Anacostia river,
and the run goes out along the trail.

After the finish - happy Nan!

Also, I was very happy with my finish time:  38:15. Yes, some folks pushing strollers with children in them were faster than me.  But I had fun! And staying to listen to the age-cadre results, I finished faster than the top finisher in her seventies - something I failed to do in Annapolis!

Happy Runners!

The second 5K was in Baltimore. They have a "Running Festival", with a marathon, half-marathon, and 5K. My first HUGE event - overall, there are tens of thousands of runners, with more than 4,000 in the 5K alone. Because there was a chance for a conflict with the Baltimore Orioles in the American League play-offs, the start time for every event was moved earlier by an hour. I had to be in Baltimore, nearly an hour's drive away, by 6:30 am!  A friend came to my succor and offered her driveway and house, just a block from the start line, as my place to be.  The real benefit was the access to the house (she was gone for the weekend) and her bathroom - as there were inadequate noisome porta-potties.  Since I had buckets of coffee getting ready, this was huge!

Huge numbers of people in the very early morning

At the start

I also did this one with the friend I ran in Annapolis with. She's about five years older than me, and also brand-new to this as a sport. Her daughter is a marathoner, and also ran the 5K with friends as a training run for an upcoming marathon. I liked the crowds, the noise, and fun party at the end.

It's still early

Nearing the end

They had a QR-scan code on the running bibs
you could scan on your phone to get the official results

Pride

Get out there and do stuff!

Me at the helm

This is what it's all about.  I'm just home from a peak lifetime experience, and I'm very happy, and very very tired, but not hurt or exhausted or sick. I want to do more, be more, keep moving on and on!

What did you want to be when you were growing up? I'm just a little bit too old for Cowboy, or Fireman, or even Doctor, to have been in the scheme of things I could choose, just like I couldn't choose to be an elf or a fairy. But pretty early on, I fixed on Sailor.  The Swallows and Amazons books by Arthur Ransome told me a girl could be master of her own ship, the equal of any boy. Those books literally changed my life, as I tried my best to be Nancy Blackett, terror of the seas (who couldn't use her given name Ruth as pirates must be ruthless).  I had a boat in high school, and spent as much time as possible on board, learning courage and capabilities along the way. I took a hiatus from sailing in college, but have a boat now and continue to find it restoring and good for my self confidence and self image. This is even when I have to deal with a crisis such as it appearing to sink, as in the past couple of weeks. (A week ago Sunday night I packed a sleeping bag and chocolate and was prepared to spend the night pumping to keep her afloat - turned out not to be necessary, which in some tiny way disappointed me, though not really.) "Figure it out, and deal with it" is the story aboard.

The Pride of Baltimore II is quite possibly the prettiest ship ever built. A historic replica, it is the goodwill ambassador for the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland. The original Pride was built in the early 1980's, and it was the symbol of the restoration of the Baltimore waterfront, and it led the way to Baltimore's resurrection as a wonderful city. After the original sank, money was raised for an even better new Pride. Built on the lines of Baltimore privateers that were crucial to American victory in the war of 1812, she is just plain gorgeous. Imagine my delight to discover one could pay to be a guest crew aboard!  Like a dude ranch, or fantasy sports camp, this was fulfillment of life long fantasies.

You'll never see anything more beautiful!

There is a friggin' lot of work to be done to sail such a boat.  The crew is a collection of a dozen 20-somethings, with motley backgrounds and uncertain futures. But they sail this boat with grit, determination, skill, and confidence. And they are young women, as well as young men, right there in the thick of it, with their seaman's papers and the resume of a variety of tall ships behind them.

My regular sailing partner and I met the boat in Philadelphia, where there were several other tall ships gathered. We cast off around 8:30 pm, and motored through the chill and windy October night down the Delaware River, through international shipping and ship yards, under bridges. We were stationed on the bow as lookouts, and it was a real job. We were looking for less visible objects, because she is so big there is not always a clear view forward.  At midnight we passed under the Delaware Memorial Bridge (the one that gets you to the New Jersey turnpike) and we were off watch and went below.  We were both exhausted and were cold during the night.

Can you spot the hazard?

When we woke at first light, it was drizzling and we were back in the Chesapeake Bay. In fact, when I popped up on deck to look around, I recognized where we were at once- passing Poole's Island, north of Baltimore. As soon as the crew was fed, up went the sails. This was a big, huge, confusing job, involving many many lines and confusing sets of protocols and orders. We were given guidance, and were encouraged to put our backs into pulling whatever could be pulled on, and coiling and stowing things over and over again.  I was astonished at how very much backbreaking labor went into the job. There is art, too, in how to pull so it's useful, and it took a bit to get the finesse on it.

Food was hot and hearty and plentiful.  Not much time was spent sitting around - mostly it was standing around, when there weren't things to pull on or lines to be coiled. We were on deck through the whole rainy day. We went into the Pride's home port of Baltimore, and picked up several college students with their history professors. They were reportedly studying nineteenth century maritime law, and this was a field trip for them  The whole crew was tired, and invited the college students to pitch in and give it a whirl. Enthusiasm on the first pull quickly turned into astonishment at how hard it really was, and most of them opted out from there on out.  I felt pretty good about not only how hard I had been working, but also was so pleased that finally I was repeating some complex activity and could actually track what was going on and what would happen next. By then, we were identifying ourselves as "crew" not "passengers", and were proud of our ship.

We spent the night on the docked ship in Baltimore, and headed home this morning.  I'm tired, but I'm happy. I really worked hard, and those trips to the gym made a difference for me. I was pulling, and bending, and stooping, and twisting, and here I am, happy and not even reaching for the ibuprophen (yet). I'm pretty sure, though, that I had more coffee during these two days than in the previous two weeks put together.

As we were leaving, I took my tightly packed small but heavy duffel and slung it over my shoulder. One of the crew offered to help with it, but I went up the companionway ladder, and down the gangplank, with a bit of swagger in my walk. Home from sea (all two days of it) and ready for some liberty ashore before the next adventure.

Slow and Steady?

In a third-time's-a-charm attempt, I will be running in the annual Dead Man's Run in Historic Congressional Cemetary.  I have signed up before but not not run it.  Despite a trip to the ER this week, a well-bandaged thumb doesn't rise to the level of excuse not to run.

I was wearing a big overshirt, but pretty much this is what I wore.

I've actually been training for this one, but differently than other times. I have been very very good at following a training plan, and only missed one workout since I started running again after the Attack of the Killer Tree.  But these have been low key workouts, intervals all, only three times a week.  So in contrast to other races where the training was erratic but harder, I'll be interested to see how I do.  I'll let you know.

In other news, when did I start thinking it is ok to wear workout clothes to places other than running trails or the gym?  I pulled up at the farmer's market Sunday morning, and as I got out of the car I realized I was wearing my running clothes from before.  My sweat had dried, but skin-tight clothes on main street, where I always run into people I know?  Not an experience I intend to repeat!

Fashionable Fitness

I think an extraordinary amount about what to wear while working out. It's part of what motivates me to get out there, along with all my gadgets. But at the same time, I'm all hyper about not owning too many clothes.  Back in late 2012, I re-did my closet and decided I could only own clothes that fit in my room - no spilling out over the whole house.  I'm at capacity again, and need to decide how to proceed.

When I look back at how I've spent money on clothes in the past year or so, it is almost entirely on workout / casual clothes.  There is some overlap between pure gym clothes and casual hang-out-and-do-chores clothes, especially in the tops. Plus, I generally sleep in sweats and a tee, so shopping at the casual / gym places works for me on many levels.

I've gotten by without buying any work clothes for a couple of reasons. One is that my weight has never been more stable in my adult life.  My weight continues to bounce within a ten-pound range, for what is coming up on four whole years now. And within the last 15 or so years, I've been around this weight range before. So I was able to harvest some good quality classic clothes from my big closet archeology - ten or more years old and they fit and weren't worn out - because I forgot about them when they no longer fit.  For the past summer, my go-to work outfits were dresses (or skirts and tees) and bare legs (we nominally have an all-summer casual dress code which allows a lot of wiggle room, but even in important meetings women have bare legs in DC in summer).

My weight in perspective: since 1988!

I have a closet full of tailored slacks, 15+ pairs, only one pair bought in the last year. They are navy, black, and grey, with one pair of brown.  I have about 10 silk (read dry clean only) knit tops, and an equal number of washable cotton ones, that need upgrading, but I'll probably do that on-line. This is more than I need to own in total, but I want to be ruthless about getting rid of the less-than-perfect ones.

I have bought several pairs of shoes, both casual and for work. I haven't worn heels since and never ever will again since I didn't wear them to meet the President (it was Clinton-that's how long it's been!)  I got a catalogue in the mail from an English company, Hotter, and found cool shoes that are wide enough for my bunions. I've added four pairs to my closet, and I'm out of room.  I'm getting rid of those I don't like, but again there are more that I like and that fit than I seem to wear in regular rotation. How many of those should I hang onto?

So the only "shopping" I do is for casual clothes.Shoes are clearly a fitness tool, and since I'm running and walking I think having a couple of pairs in rotation is good. My Very Hungry Labrador regularly prunes my sock collection, despite all my precautions, so I keep getting more of those.  But I can easily do laundry once a week, and so how many clothes do I need to own?  Not so many.  But I consider it money well spent if the buzz of excitement for dressing in new clothes is some of what pushes me to get moving. And I'm being ruthless about either returning clothes or donating them if they are not perfect for me.

Here are my go-to places for casual and work-out clothes - almost all the shopping I do is on-line, except where noted.

Athleta.  Hands down my favorite, but pricy. Serious workout clothes, and yoga clothes, and fashion.  I've bought dresses and sweaters from them as well as workout clothes. My biggest complaint is they don't have a lot of petites, which I need for full length bottoms - since I'm the ultimate pear shaped woman, needing Large on bottom but Medium on top.
City Sports. They are in my neighborhood, across the street from Whole Foods and almost next door to my new gym. I most often buy bottoms on-line (to find L Petite), but stop in for sales on tops, socks and shoes. This is where I got my running shorts from, in an on-line sale I got lucky.
Title Nine. Serious athletic clothes and fun dresses and tops. Love love love their catalogue, but disappointed that often when I go to order, they don't have my size.  They also have bra-whisperers, and an associated line of fashionable bras called Bounce. Since the pear-shaped thing means bras are not a big issue for me, I've always resented spending real money on them, but those of you more endowed might enjoy what they have.
Fabletics.  This is brand new to me.  I got a blind junk email from them, and whimiscally clicked through, and actually bought.  They are on-line only, and push to sign up to a SUBSCRIPTION FOR OUTFITS - very very nicely priced, but you have to actively opt out if you don't want to buy on a monthly basis. Knowing my history with these kinds of things, I'll have to close my account soon, but I bought their intro offer - complete 3-piece outfit for $29 - and am wearing it now. It fits well with Large and Medium bottom and top, respectively, for me. They seem to carry extensive sizing, and I liked the idea of a coordinated outfit. After one more outfit, though, I think I'll probably declare my workout clothes storage full and just stop.  I notice they fit well, and feel comfortable, but they are not as "technical" as the clothes from City Sports or Athleta or Title Nine.  I mean not necessarily miracle wicking fabrics or reflective.
REI. Long established camping equipment store, also has store brand and other brand outdoor and workout clothes. I love REI - I went there once for a spork for my boy's extensive camping trip the next day, and walked out with $250 total in purchases. Their store brand clothes is not always of the quality of other brands, but I shop the sales there and recently did well on yoga clothes seasonal closeout. I only do in person shopping there because I want to examine the quality. I often buy purses and back packs there.
LL Bean.  Of course. They always have petites and I buy most of my weekend long pants there. And fleece. I have a couple drawers full of LL Bean fleece.

Sustainable Training

For the third time this year, I didn't run in a 5K I had signed up for. This one was the best excuse yet - only a week since The Attack of the Killer Tree - but it's way too much a pattern. I wasn't supposed to run after the concussion, and I considered going and walking. But wouldn't you know it - it was a themed run - Flee the British - and the setup included Dolly Madison in costume leading off with the portrait of George Washington under her arm, and followed by British soldiers in costumes with muskets and bayonets. The last thing I was up for was being last in the pack - a very real possibility - and the onlookers all cheering on the redcoats behind me.

(Aside: I am bemused at how we are celebrating one of the most humiliating defeats in U.S. history - the capture by the enemy of our national capital in 1814 with all kinds of amusing "run away! run away!" festivals.)

I bailed on one race earlier because I signed up in expectation of friends also going and they didn't. I bailed on another because it was the day before a 25-hour plane trip and I was afraid I would push myself in the run and hurt the knees, which would then freeze up during the interminable time sitting still in steerage.

So I actually have run in two 5Ks this year - one in May and one in July. My time in July was better than the first one - hooray.  I'm signed up for two more in October - the Dead Man's run in the Historic Congressional Cemetery at the beginning of the month and a huge running festival in Baltimore in the middle of the month, with my friend I was with for the Annapolis race.

When I split my head open, I was actually on my way back from a run with the dog. I had been pretty good at doing run/walks with the dog 2-3 times a week, and longer walks on other days. But it was very unstructured with no accountability, and no sense that I was getting better or progressing in any way.  So after bailing on fleeing the British, I decided to get a more structured, and hopefully sustainable, training plan. Using my Runkeeper app on the iphone, I picked a plan labelled "Beginner's 5K - to finish" and jumped into the third week of the workouts. This was so I would be done with the plan by the time of the next race on October 4. It certainly builds slowly, and actually, even at week 3, took me back a couple of notches from what I had been doing on my own. It involves just three runs a week, with the midweek runs as timed intervals and the weekend runs longer distance-based intervals.  From the beginning, I've been tacking on a little bit extra - one or two extra intervals, but at the timing they suggest.

I have got the dog more in tune with running.  Since there is nothing my Very Hungry Labrador likes more than food, I'm using food to encourage him to keep up and match my pace.  I think perhaps switching back to the relatively short intervals is also good for him. So I no longer feel like I'm engaged in dog abuse.

I also did some runs in running shorts. I bought the longest ones I could find, but they are much shorter than I would normally allow myself to be seen in. I'm more comfortable with the tight but longer running pants. The shorts are good when it's steamy, though I feel like I have to change right afterwards. But paying attention to wearing clothes I like is part of my motivation.

Now my problem is the shortening of days.  It is pitch dark when I roll out of bed. Some days it's hot and steamy, other days its frosty, but it is always dark.  This past week, I changed up my routine. I had been going first down to the stream valley park by my house and doing a mile or so up or down stream, then returning through the neighborhood. This week first I went through the neighborhood, and came back as sunrise was approaching and the trail by the stream was less dark.  I think I may need to switch in a week or so to treadmill running inside, which does nothing for the dog who will still need to be walked.  Or else find a way to switch my schedule to either go to work later, or to run in the evening (I can't imagine running at lunch - no time to change, run, shower, and change back - that would be 90 minutes at least, lunch is more often around 30-45 minutes for me.)  My neighborhood is built on a steep hillside with most of the roads going up and down hill - not good running turf though great walking exercise - and so running out of my neighborhood to somewhere else... not a lot of good choices there either. I'll figure it out, though, and having the specific structure of specific workouts to do on specific days for my chosen training plan is good discipline.

So I'm hanging in there, and looking forward to running for the next twenty years at least. Sustainably. I can't capture here today all the other things I've thought of for blog posts - eating, wardrobe management, etc., but nothing else earthshattering is going on. School has begun, and my girl is settling in. We're establishing new routines, and it is working out fine.  Big boy has his own apartment finally, and middle boy is happy in in his school. Mother is hanging in there.

So that's it for today - the basement and the dump beckon me!

Sustainability

I've been thinking a lot recently about sustainability.  It's just another word for maintenance, but it's maintenance made easier, at least the way I think about it.

The red line is my weighted average and the light grey line
is the actual scale reading from every day.

I have maintained my weight for over four years now, most of the time within a four pound band. I found this cool website that takes in my daily readings on the wifi scale and calculates a fancy weighted average, to show what it figures is my "true" weight, the weight underlying all the daily bouncing around from water and other minor changes. When you look at the trend over the last year, its calculation of my true weight shows even less variation - and in the last three months, varying less than a pound. And this is weighing myself every single day!

So clearly, like it or not, I'm in maintenance.

Having realized that, now I'm starting the push the boundaries of what is maintenance. I think I've written before that not actively trying to lose weight translates into gaining weight. What that really means is a lack of focus, a lack of effort, allows me to slip back into bad habits that cause the weight to pile on. The reason I stop trying to lose weight is its just so friggin hard. It's too much work. What my new friend Darya at Summer Tomato would tell me is I have to learn good habits, so when I relax the weight doesn't creep back. Or at least doesn't come piling back on quickly. I think I like to eat ice cream enough that eternal vigilance is required, but it would be nice to relax into good habits.

My cooking and eating totally awesome vegetables lasted about two weeks. Then I needed my life back to do other things, like go hiking with the dog, empty things out of my basement, see friends, attend parties, and go sailing.  I tried to find convenience foods that mimicked the food I would make at home, but it's not at all the same.  I didn't carry my lunch to work, and butter chicken at the food trucks is not, in my current parlance, a sustainable lunch. I have had time to walk, and to walk far enough to get good salads, and that is helpful. I have consciously kept my caffeine to two cups (mugs) of coffee each morning, usually my own, and I have added an afternoon habit of walking across the street to Starbucks for unsweetened iced green tea. I think the walk is as reviving as the tea, and I'm in a position where the $2.70 for something I could make myself for pennies is sustainable, though the grinch in me begrudges the money.

I spent almost the entire weekend making family dinner for tonight, Sunday night.  I had a full table - seven people - and my girl helped me pull it off successfully. We cooked phenomenal amounts of food, more than I served, and there is a good chance I'll be able to make it last all week, for lunches and dinners. I did get the kitchen cleaned up tonight, but parsing out what needs to be frozen, what can be divided up into lunch portions, will have to wait until tomorrow.

But this was a weekend more or less dedicated to celebrating summer food. I can't do this every weekend. I can't in a food weekend make enough food for a month. So how can I create a sustainable way of eating fresh awesome food much more often?  Ideas, anyone?

Walking

I'm doing a large amount of walking, not do much on the running. This is partly for the dog, who is not a runner. But I just bought some new running shoes, and I'm going to train for the next 5k on August 24. 

Here us what I wore for today's Rock Creek Park walk / hike. I really like this skirt. 

Yum!

I'm really trying to embrace the "Life should be awesome" philosophy of The Foodist and only eat incredibly wonderful food, the best of which only comes from cooking at home with incredibly wonderful ingredients.  I'm really really trying, but it's really really hard.  So far, I seem to have convinced myself really wonderful food is totally worth it, and that is helping me pass up much less-than-wonderful food.  But getting fresh wonderful ingredients and finding time to cook from them is hard. But very rewarding, I have to say.  And I couldn't have picked a better time of year to try this.  I am making medium sized batches of everything, because prepared vegetables and meat stay awesomely good longer than their untreated forms.

I had a farm-delivery perfectly ripe small cantalope for breakfast, with a "parmesan cracker" I made last night after dinner. For lunch, I had the last of last week's airy cabbage cole slaw (which was still good, though losing its luster) and a left over magnificent crab cake from Sunday's epic three hour lunch out.  For dinner, I was on my own but knew I had a house full of vegetables that really needed attending to.

I made this tonight! Mine looked almost as good and was YUM!

Imagine my surprise to sit down to read the NY Times tonight after work to find a recipe for corn, squash, and tomatoes. OK, maybe not so surprising given the season. But, I was planning to cook my corn, squash and tomatoes I just happened to have sitting around. And this was Thai influenced, not yet another olive oil and basil thing. Cooked in coconut oil, with cilantro and (yes) basil, and garlic and ginger.  And I had every single ingredient (except vidalia rather than red onions).  So of course I had to make it.

I sat down to eat an hour and fifteen minutes after I started cooking. But, I also made chicken (with bottled Thai green curry sauce) and roasted a couple of eggplants that also needed cooking, which I plan to use a different night. My word, the eggplant is good - I ate a couple of pieces after my dinner, standing up in the kitchen, and had to consciously stop myself from making a whole second dinner!

Dinner was - very good. The chicken was what I expected - it is organic and from Whole Foods - and the sauce was good and meshed well with the vegetables. I'm really focusing on the vegetables, trying to put the time and effort into them, and making them the centerpiece of my plate.  Very good, even though the corn and squash were past their prime, still very summery.

Now I have leftovers for several more days of lunches and solitary dinners, while my girl is off visiting family in Ohio. No more 75 minute meals. 

So I'm sitting here all virtuous about all this lovely deliciousness I've created, when there comes a knock at the door. It's the UPS guy, who dropped off a small box I wasn't expecting. I finally figured out it was a sweet food gift from the company that replaced my roof at great expense a couple of months ago. "Oh no" I'm thinking, "here I've just stuffed myself on vegetables and someone walks right up and hands me dessert!!!"  But the good news is it's very resistable, even though good. It is a tin of pretzels enrobed in some airy sugary white confection - nary a scrap of chocolate to be seen, thank goodness. I had a couple (just to be polite to the imaginary person from the roofing company who ordered them, you understand). They are tasty - but they also pretty much embody everything I'm trying to avoid - white flour and sugar and not much else!  Off to work they go tomorrow.

But still, today was totally YUM!  And I think I'm well poised to make tomorrow similar, but with a lot less work.

Annapolis 5K

Yesterday was a women's only 5K sponsored by a running club in Annapolis. (There was a run for men afterwards.) Adrian, a friend of mine from my sailing club, had signed up for it and I joined in. It was very different from the TKPK5K - hot, humid, smaller, no headphones allowed.  Adrian is pretty much my only running friend at this point. She is a couple of years older than me, mostly retired, and lives a nomadic and very active and outdoor life, splitting her time between the sailboat and the camper trailer.

Bottom line: I did better than in the Takoma Park - I read the print out of race results, not available yet on-line, but I finished in 40:09 from the chip timer. (TKPK5K was 41:06.) Obviously I need to set a new goal of under 40 minutes from here on out.

I drank a lot of water in advance, and munched a bit of cheese on the drive over. Plus a couple of cups of coffee - so nice not to be seriously dependent on coffee, but it really helps.  Despite the brutally humid conditions, I decided not to carry water on the run - there were sure to be a couple of water stations if I needed it. In general, I'm inclined to follow a rule of anything less than an hour doesn't require water during it, and certainly not sugary fuel to keep going.

I wasn't sure what to wear, but ended up with some compression pants and a very loud wicking top. I got some new running shorts, but hadn't worn them in any workouts and was concerned they might have unexpected awkwardness like bunching up. Didn't seem the time to experiment.

Pre-race homage to Bitchcakes. I did put on shoes, of course. 

Pre-race jitters.

This women's only race was different from others I've been in. There were many more women our age, and as I jogged along, there were lots of women going more-or-less my speed.

I jogged most of the first mile, and from there on walked up hills and jogged most of the rest of the time. I kept the heart rate up and only had one break where it went down.

Many small hills - why did there seem more ups than downs even though we ended back and the starting point?

 We hung around for the awards, including the age-group awards. The top 3 in each age group - including 70-79 - beat my time. Only the sole 80+ runner had a time slightly worse than mine!  What a motivation to keep doing this!

BTW, my running friend just got Younger Next Year from the library - I told her about our friend Chris and that she should really love this book!

Post-race happiness. Note red face.

What's Working and What's Not

I'm cooking with awesome fresh ingredients like a fiend. This is working well. I'm focused on using the food I bought, and it is truly more delicious than just getting takeout again. I made my cole slaw - with a great vinaigrette, good olive oil, white wine vinegar, and cilantro from my garden. Who knew cabbage could be light and airy and full of summer?  I made a braised chicken dish with my Amish chicken, following a recipe from Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food.  I served it with mixed beans soaked and cooked from dry - instead of grains, I am going to try to carb up a bit from where I was, but by using beans as my filler.  And tonight my girl and I had fun creating a zucchini lasagna, not from a recipe, but making it up together as we went along. The squash was sliced length-wise and used instead of pasta noodles. It was soupy, but delicious, with four different cheeses (and canned spaghetti sauce). Making dinner as joint entertainment is not what we usually do, and I'm not sure what the magic formula was that made it work tonight, but how fun! Now I've got delicious leftovers for delicious lunches, and maybe even another dinner, before I have to shop and cook again.

I'm also really enjoying just relaxing about my eating habits and my weight. I'm darn stable in my weight, and can experiment a bit and enjoy myself doing it. I've found a "paleo" granola - more nuts and seeds than grain - and have enjoyed it with blueberries and almond milk in the morning. This is closer to what normal people eat. I'm liking the idea of less meat, without resorting to grains, and I'm enjoying the quest for what works for me.

What's not working?  Breaking bad habits. It seems what I really want in the evening is excellent chocolate, and standing up in the kitchen to get it is fine. Tea doesn't do it. Cosily tucking myself into bed with tea and my book doesn't do it. Sigh. I was looking for an intelligent way out of my terrible habit. I can add over 500 calories to my day's intake in 15 minutes at the end of the day. Sigh.

What else isn't working? Running with my dog. The Very Hungry Labrador does not like the heat, not one bit. He's not wild for trotting fast while I huff and puff at a jog, either. Especially because he has had heart problems (worms in his heart) I don't want to truly strain him. We can walk forever, though if it's hot he starts to droop (and he always droops when I turn around, as if to say "let's keep going!").  But after a mile of my jogging, he slows his trot to the point where I'm dragging him.  So I have to figure out how to do some training for running, which I really like, but without him. Seems such a waste to be outside without him.  This weekend, when it wasn't hot, we walked over 4 miles each day, and he liked that fine, so that can be my every-other-day from running.

I'm also thinking it's time to find a new gym and get more social with my strength training workouts. There are more than a couple gyms in town, I'll need to check them out and look for sales. I'll check out the Y, but it is just that little bit further away to make it a barrier at 5:30 in the morning.

Some pluses and some minuses. Excelsior.

Seduced at the Farmer's Market Again

I very much want to eat more vegetables and fruit, especially excellent fresh and local ones. But that pretty much requires cooking.  Cooking often. Also shopping often.  I have a very bad track record of buying more vegetables than I cook, and cooking more vegetables than I eat.

"Life should be delicious" says the book I'm reading now.  I agree, but it's an awful lot of work to get there.  I'm just back from the market, and here's what I've got-and what I plan to do with it. I need specific plans, and I have to get this done this weekend because all bets are off during the week.

Cauliflower.  I will roast it, with some shallots I already have. Will keep for most of a week.

Zucchini. I want to make a lasagna, using thin long slices of zuchini instead of noodles. I have ricotta, but no mozzarella- I'm contemplating using feta instead. I can assemble today, and cook tomorrow or the next day.

Cabbage. I want to shred it in the food processor and make a cole slaw in a homemade vinaigrette.  (A couple of years ago I did this with a fresh young farmers market cabbage and realized there is a huge difference even with this humble vegetable between supermarket ones and the real thing.) this will be good with work lunches all week.

Peaches. These early peaches are iffy but I couldn't resist.

Cherries. Good for snacks.

Blueberries. For breakfast or late night snacks.

I also decided to put my money where my mouth is and buy farmers market meat from pastured animals. I got a couple of steaks (I've got a big craving for steak salads), and three pounds of chicken thighs for a family meal. I tried not to flinch at the price. I don't have a specific plan for the chicken, but usually I would cook it with a bottled curry sauce and serve with rice. But I'm wanting to add beans to my diet, as I decrease meat, so I'm thinking about this. I put the meat in the fridge not the freezer because again, I need to cook it soon.

Rather than leap into the kitchen to get started on this I'm thinking about a nap. 

Decomposing Habits

Trigger, response, reward.  That is what a habit is composed of.  You can make a new habit by setting up a new sequence of trigger, response, reward. Breaking a habit is harder. One way to do it is to overlay a new response onto the same trigger-but that new response has to have an equal or better reward.

My bedtime snacking for example.  As I get ready for bed, I plan to sit there and eat something chocolaty, while spending a last few minutes checking in with my book or online. (And the dog gets his own bedtime snack-and his habit is so strong it's now absolutely essential or neither of us gets any sleep!). This sometimes leads to huge sugar binges, sometimes actually doubling my total calorie intake for the day. What is the actual trigger, and what is the actual reward?  Is the reward the physical sugar rush? Is my body craving higher blood sugar levels after a day with fairly low carb levels all day? Or is it the psychological sense of a special treat, taking care of myself, some sort of extra nurturing? Or some third possibility, associated with the physical act of eating, but not the blood sugar? I could ruminate on this for a long time, as is my wont. Or, I could set up an experiment and decompose the habit into separate responses, and see which reward seems to satisfy me. (This is straight from the book I'm reading, and right up my line of self-tracking and experimentation).

If the physical sugar rush is what matters, then almost any form of sweet eaten almost anywhere should do it. A teaspoon of sugar while standing up in the kitchen, for example. If it's the physical act of eating, perhaps a cup of warm herb tea would meet the need. If its nurturing, hmmm, checking in with the family instead?  A little doggy petting session? (He is very affectionate and wiggles and snuggles all over, very positive feedback.)  Not sure.  What I do know is I am usually so exhausted at the end of the night whatever my action is it has to be very very easy and not time consuming, so some sort of lotion on the face, or a bath, doesn't appeal.

The idea is I can do anything by paying attention and using my willpower- for a short period of time. So I should try these different approaches, for a couple of times each, and think about what is most satisfying. Then make it a habit, do it essentially the same way every night, so I no longer think about it and don't need to use any of my precious willpower on it any more.

My hypothesis is that the cup of tea will work, made in the microwave but in my fancy china cup.  In fact, right now, I have a little thrill of anticipation at the thought of trying it tonight.