January Adventure

So with just hours to go I realized I hadn't done a January adventure, and time was running out. (A fitness adventure a month is one of the few resolutions I made this year.)  So I packed my running clothes into a bag and brought them to work. It's finally warm enough to be outside, and so just before 5 I changed, stashed my work clothes and purse in my car in the basement garage, and headed out to the mall to complete my second week training session for couch to 5k.


So what qualifies this as an adventure?  Well, I never did this before. I often thought about taking a mall run, but never have.  I've done plenty of mall walks, mostly at lunch and sometimes in winter dim early mornings, but never in running clothes, actually pounding out the miles.

Not that I'm actually pounding out the miles. At this early point in my training (end of second week of a nine-week program) I'm running very short intervals so that its only nine minutes of running in thirty minutes total.  None of it is fast, so that for the thirty minutes I'm only averaging four miles an hour (I just can't walk very fast).  But I'm out there in public doing it - and that's the real adventure. There were plenty of tourists and other after work runners out there, and I risked running into someone from work. But with my glasses off and headphones on, mostly I was in my own little world and the runs, small and feeble though they were, felt fine.  I did encounter a colleague as I rode down in the elevator - a healthy and gorgeous millennial girl who thinks exercise is a natural part of life - of course I would go trot around the mall for entertainment on a Friday night.  She does triathalons for her amusement.

It was really nice being out there in the fresh air as the sun set. I had no problem keeping to a rhythm during the runs, with the help of the ipod. But boy did I stiffen up during the drive home. I did some foam rolling just now, I hope it helps.

I did go back and read all my blog entries from two years ago, the first time I started running.  It seems like I totally stuck to the program through week five, when the runs get long - twenty minutes and then progressively up to a full thirty minutes of running (which they assume is enough running to complete the 5k but which won't be enough for me).  I didn't like the long runs, and decided to stick with twelve minute runs with brief intervals of walking.  Then I started to taper off, and wasn't doing three sessions a week, but instead barely two.

So this time I want to stick with the three runs per week - another reason I went after work today. It feels like my body needs the rest time so that more than three runs would be too many. But I'm running on different days than my two days of strength training, so my overall activity is going up to five days a week.

The other thing I did last time was finish out the whole 5k distance on my Sunday runs, after finishing the 30 minutes of the workout. I think that's a really good idea and I hope to do that this Sunday on the treadmill.

The weather will finally be at least nice enough to go outside this weekend. I've got a mess of tree limbs down in the front yard that has to be my first order of business tomorrow. The dog is still confined to quarters for medical reasons so he can be with me in the yard but no walks for him. That's why I think I'll stick to the treadmill rather than another outside run. Though it was lovely tonight, to feel the fresh air.  I'll get plenty of chances to do that as spring comes on in.

Something New

I heard a couple of off-hand references to "foam rolling" - at the gym, and from my physiatrist when I saw her a year or so ago for many ailments. She suggested it might help prevent my knees from hurting.  I asked about it at the gym, and we did a quick exercise which was incredibly painful yet oddly relieving.  Based on that sample of one, I bought a foam roll at the sporting good store back in October when I had more time, I googled "foam rolling for knees" and watched a DIY video, and gave it a try.  It was incredibly painful.  I made a mental note to give it another try, and the roller sat under my bed till last week.

Around the holiday season, I heard an interview on Science Friday of the author of The Exercise Cure, who suggests that exercise can cure everything that ails you (actually almost everything that ails you). I'm already a believer, and the only thing new to me was his stressing how foam rolling really helps avoid injury, improves flexibility, and makes you feel better. I've come to understand it as basically doing a deep tissue massage on yourself, using your body weight on the roller for the massage.  I got the book, which includes a specific section on complete foam rolling.

Last Sunday night, after having started jogging on the treadmill and also many chores, I was hurting all over before bedtime. So I gave it a try. It was very painful. Of course, the word is that clearly that means you need it. Apparently, it gets better.  It was awkward doing it on the floor with the book, figuring it out as I went along. Of course, that will certainly get better.

I just did it again, after doing an interval run on the treadmill and stretching, and it made me feel better almost instantly.   But it was very painful while I was doing it. It was less awkward, as I worked my way through the exercises.

Couple of areas where there isn't consensus - should you do your lower back? Does it do any good for knees?

But based on how it makes me feel immediately, I'm going to try to do this a couple of times a week.  The book I have stresses to do this as a supplement to aerobic exercise, strength training, and stretching.  If only all I had to do was work out and keep myself in shape.

Confession

I read very recently a rant about hating how Mommy bloggers use their blog to confess "oh no! I got caught out and had to feed my kid regular milk, I couldn't find organic!" or some such way of boasting how great they normally are.  Of course people put their best feet forward on their blog. I do too, though I strive to be honest. (I can't find where I read the rant, or I would link to it.)

And honestly, I've not been doing so well on the eating front. I'm sick and tired of tracking, it just seems like too much work. I got through the holidays without tracking and without great damage, but that may have been due to a stomach bug. Certainly since the holidays I've been mostly eating as if it didn't matter.  That means not only multiple sweets a day, but gratuitous carb sides as well, rice and pasta and bread.

A big problem for people who eat low carb as I strive to do is that when we fall off the bandwagon, we combine styles of eating that converge to the worst of all possible worlds. During our truly low carb stints, we lose our fear of fats. We are able to lose weight and keep it off eating as much as half our calories from fat. We can eat not only the good fats, olive oil and nut oils, but also the animal fats labelled bad by most nutritionists, and still our cholesterol and insulin are just fine.  But when we add sugar and grains to the mix, without cutting down on the fat, insulin gets bad, cholesterol gets bad, and we get hungry and cranky.  And we gain weight.

I'm not sure how many days I've been eating like this- edging into it since New Years, truly - three weeks!  Eating I have done recently:  a Big Mac and fries, and the same afternoon, a brownie and a huge snickerdoodle (at a conference with constant snacks and short time for lunch). Yesterday: chicken and pasta main course, several home baked chocolate cookies afterwards, and ice cream sandwiches later. I have eaten too many sweets knowing I'm going to feel bad in a few minutes, not just regret it intellectually but actually feel physically bad.  What drives this? Where does this come from?

Of course, we can only focus on and take care of a few things at a time. There is only so much will power to go around. As Scott Adams points out, one needs to make things easy on oneself to make sure we can make the right choices.  Apples instead of ice cream sandwiches in the house. But I have apples in the house, and still I buy the ice cream sandwiches and eat them up.  He makes it sound too easy. There is no doubt that I, and many other people (who appear to be mostly women), eat to be consciously destructive, not just for short term gratification. Plus, I know that "binge dieting" - that is, a very focused and disciplined campaign to lose weight - works for me. The "easy path" of many good small choices works for maintenance (maybe) but not for actually seeing the scale go down.  Perhaps that's because I have the disadvantages of thrifty genes and a lowered metabolism from having been very fat before - there is plenty of evidence that both those things mean one needs fewer calories than if you don't have those things, to maintain the same body weight.  (There are other, even worse, disadvantages I'm so lucky not to have, e.g. so far my thyroid seems fine.)

Am I going to turn this around, before the scale fully reflects the disaster that is about to appear? (There is a good chance that my weight will skyrocket over the next several days even if I clamp down now.)  Probably not. I want to, but I'm not ready to commit to do so. I am committing to doing some running, on the treadmill till the dog is back in commission.  I like the feeling I get from vigorous exercise. I am wedging in the running, 30 minutes three times a week. You can peek at the Quick Log, where I will probably post the workouts, since none of my apps really catch the treadmill activity in the way I want it without having to do extra entry.

Well, enough self indulgent navel gazing. Off to do something or other.  Excelsior!

It is Progress, after all

I think of my weight as essentially stable for three years. But, right now the variations are on my side. Exactly a year ago I weighed 12 pounds more than I do today. Excelsior.


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The Graphs

I spent some time yesterday looking at my data. I love the graphs, and I stare at them trying to extract meaning from them. Is the secret hidden within?

My weight for the past 35 (or so) years

Starting with the big picture: I weigh less now than I did for half of my thirties and way less than the first part of my forties - my fattest time. Yay me!  I look at this graph and I remember all the pessimist comments about how diets don't work, even if you do lose weight, you will just gain it back again. Well phooey on that. I did gain back a lot of the weight from my Big Loss, but not all of it, and not for ten years.Every day below my peak is a victory. Not because of some abstract number, but because I felt more comfortable, as was articulated by Alice's cousin Linda.

And now, and now, it appears I've established a measure of control. I've spent three years bouncing around the same ten pound range.

My weight since I've been keeping this blog

I've been able to arrest the creep back up - three times now, and I'm in my fourth bout. (I suspect if I hadn't just gotten so sick, we would be looking a more clear recent upward trend.) And I'm happy this last year was mostly spent in the lower half of the ten-pound range.

What is the meaning from this?

I've learned I can lose up to five pounds quickly, by going on a strict Atkins induction-level diet. The Atkins folks say those five pounds are water weight, because your body regulates water storage differently when you have a very low carb intake.  The only way I know for sure I'm doing it strictly is to track carefully.

I've also learned it's very very difficult for me to maintain the motivation and strictness for longer than three or so weeks. The two keys to success are to do lots of cooking myself, of vegetables and meat, and to limit treats. But I want to have my oral gratification, from chocolate or ice cream. I start with small, reasonable portions, and "get away" with it. I stop cooking because life catches up with me, and try to make relatively low carb choices from prepared foods. I've read how our metabolism has a time lag, so apparent continued weight loss in the face of increased intake will catch up and arrest progress, fairly substantially, even causing the bounce up, eventually.  Would I keep losing weight on Atkins if I kept going strictly? I don't know, because I haven't done it. I tracked and stayed strict this fall for longer than previous rounds, and I lost more weight in total. So there is sparse evidence for continued efficacy, but it looks good.

So how hard and long do I want to fight to keep going down?  I don't know. Right now, with the residual stomach bug, is not a good time for me to focus on food and cooking.

So what about exercise? I've become fairly fond of it. How am I doing about burning the calories?

Calories burned each day since I've had my device. The orange line is the average for the calendar month.

I noted here at the end of August that this was the lowest year for calorie burn since I'd been keeping track. I vowed to up it, and I managed to keep it up over 2000 calories a day every month since then. It definitely takes consciously moving to do that. The December average includes the day after Christmas, when I was flattened by the bug, which was the least number of calories burned since I'd been keeping track - only 1,466 for twenty-four hours!  (The axes don't even go down that low!)

I have two ways of getting my daily calorie count up - adding in some conscious, vigorous exercise such as running or biking, or alternatively, just keep moving all day. One of the reasons I like my BMF calorie counting device is because it credits me for all the movements I do, not just "exercise". So the day before Christmas was an incredibly active day, where I don't think I sat still for 10 minutes in a row. That day I burned 2,519 calories that day (more than 1,000 more than when sick!) but I never really "exercised" - I just kept moving. To the store for last minute gifts, to and fro while wrapping, to and fro while cooking, to and fro while marshalling the kids from one place to another.

I don't think the level of exercise I mostly do has much impact on my ability to lose weight, but as I mentioned, I'm fond of it. I like exercising, and I like having the energy to spend a day like Christmas eve to-and-froing as much as is necessary. I would like to do more vigorous exercise, but I'm going to have to go out of my way to figure out how and when. I'm more motivated to do that than to focus on food and cooking right now.

Irresolute

No great plans or vows or resolutions coming from me. I've been sick since Christmas, and have spent entirely too much time gazing off into space. There is a difference between mindfulness and mindlessness, and I think I've been in more of the latter for the past few days.

But you can only do what you can do. My body betrayed me, but the silver lining is there:  no New Year's Day bounce up in the weight, since nothing stayed with me and even now most things don't sound good to me, and my stomach capacity is very low. I don't imagine that will last long, but it shielded me from my traditionally weak time, after the holiday work is done but before real life resumes.

And that real life comes back tomorrow. Sigh. I like my job, and I enjoy what I do when I am there most days. Still, if I won the lottery I'd be gone without a second glance. (My odds of winning the lottery are worse than most since I have never bought a ticket.)

I did spend some hours today updating and make new graphs. I'm happy with how I did, diet and exercise-wise, last year. It wasn't great, but I also dealt with some world class life challenges, and I maintained my physical condition overall and maintained-slightly bettered-- my weight. I can't post the graphs now because my computer decided to celebrate the new year by backing itself up and no other business can be conducted right now-this is typed out on the iPad and so is likely to have spelling and punctuation errors.

During a long dog walk today I thought of one resolution. It's only partly thought through, but I want to have a monthly "fitness adventure" to chronicle here. What is a fitness adventure? My hero, Sheryl Yvette, participates in lots of bike and running events. That is the sort of thing I'm thinking of, but I'm more likely to have less ambitious and less structured challenges, mostly things I think up for myself. But something, at least once a month, that is planned and trained for, that is off my beaten path and a bit of a challenge for me.

The Takoma Park 5K is an obvious one, in May I think. My dog will be under activity restrictions for a medical problem through February, so I need to start thinking through what to do before then, sans dog. Bike ride? But it's January, what will the weather be? A hike? An urban hike? An urban outdoor jog? Hmm... If I get on the treadmill now, I could do that before the end of the month. Plot my own 5k round the monuments. Got to get excited and have a near-term objective.

So Happy New Year everyone! What's your resolution?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad