Homeostasis, or Set Points

I learned in high school biology that our bodies want to stay the way they are. They are very conservative, and it takes a lot of energy to knock us off our equilibrium. When pushed, the set point will move, but it will fight to get back to where it was.  This is true of respiration and heart rates, of blood sugar levels, of body temperature, and of course, body weight.

Here is a graph of my weight from June through the present. The little dots are my daily actual weights, and the darker line running through them is my weekly average. You can see the points line up, and how they often stay roughly the same for a while.

The horizontal grid lines are two pounds apart, and my digital scale reads in half pound increments, so the daily dots are going to be in similar spots. I've lost just about eight pounds since June. See how the downward trend resumes after the bump up at the beginning of September (my college trip, to Oberlin and Ann Arbor). The October stall would have been completely disheartening if it weren't for taking my averages, which showed very slight declines. My weight was varying in the same range, but over that time gradually the lower range was predominating. Finally the plateau gave way in November, and I lost another two pounds. I bounced up at Thanksgiving, but in this case my homeostasis is working in my favor - I didn't permanently gain that weight.

Now, I've got a little ski jump up, and it's time to have a serious week or two of exercise and mindful eating, to get that line back in control and wrestle down to a new set point.  It feels like I lose in spurts, the body rests in the new set point as if getting used to it for a couple or more weeks, then I can move that set point down again with another new effort.

I am still struggling with the winter doldrums. While I am doing specific exercise efforts, my overall calorie burn for each day is lower than I was seeing most days in the summer. It's as if I'm unconsciously staying as still as possible. I can emerge from my semi-hibernation with an act of will to perform a specific task - walk or gym visit or household chore - but afterwards, the body shuts down onto the couch again.  Just got to try to keep moving as much as possible.

Drinking Chocolate

I've never been a big fan of hot chocolate or hot cocoa. However, while visiting a friend in Brooklyn this fall, I had a life changing cup of hot chocolate from Pierre Torres in Dumbo.

It was scorching hot, rich dark chocolate, not too sweet. Each sip was a delight. I want to have that experience again, but it will be a bit of a quest. One where the journey will be at least as interesting as the prize.

Of course I've visited the Pierre Torres website and I could simply order their mix. But that would be way too easy- and truly devastating if it is not the same. So first I'm trying some closer to home approaches.

I think I've never had anything but Nestles or Swiss Miss before, so there is actually a whole world for me to explore. And part of it has to be the experience and circumstances around the actual consumption.

I acquired some "Drinking Chocolate" from Whole Foods right when I came back from Brooklyn. It's from the Dominican Republic, 73%. According to the box, "rich, earthy, and bittersweet". I put it aside, because we had a warming trend, and other things such as pumpkin pies to eat.

Today, I finally hit the point where it is sufficiently cold outside, and I've been sufficiently active in the cold to be able to handle the 250 or so calories from a cup of this.

Two percent milk is what we have, warmed in the microwave. Two heaping tablespoons of chocolate powder. A cup of deliciousness.

The verdict? It's not that easy to satisfy the quest. This was very good. Very dark chocolaty, and, yes, earthy. But it's too sweet. I could do with much less sugar.

Now I have a reference point. I've studied the label: 14 grams of carbohydrate (9 grams of sugar). Too much. Keep looking. (But the rest of this box is worth using up, certainly).


- iPhone uPdate

My Day so Far

I had an all-day meeting today. Typically I hate these, not least because They usually mean stuck in one room all day with just trips down the hall every two hours. This was just like that- lunch brought in so we could stay focused. But, it was in a location and with timing that made it convenient to my metro line. I even had time to walk to and from the metro--nearly two miles each way. Crisp and cold, light in the morning, dark in the evening.

I brought my cottage cheese for breakfast, and I had ordered a salad for lunch. I passed on the chips and cookie when filling out the order. Good for me. But, the salad came with the signature flatbread in the bag. Oooops. Of course I ate it.

Walking home from the metro this evening, about a mile into it, I was suddenly overcome with the shakes. And discovered my stomach was growling and I was famished. This was a blood sugar thing, brought on by eating the bread. And maybe exacerbated by afternoon coffee. I'm so much better off being carb free all day, and more moderate in the caffeine.

A quick clementine to assuage the demanding insulin, and then dive into the freezer for instant dinner. Chicken taquitos have the right mix, since they are the relatively healthy Trader Joes chicken taquitos, not the cheese and fat laden kid's favorites from CostCo.

Another clementine and lots of water and I'm done for the day.


- iPhone uPdate

I Am Not A Reptile

There is no doubt my deep reptile brain is pushing me to stuff myself full of blubber and then hibernate. But I am not a reptile. I always hate those studies that grab headlines in the newspapers that say "these kind of people are hardwired to behave a certain way".  Besides the fact they are usually based on about twenty college students studied for a couple of weeks, the fact is we may have innate dispositions towards behaving a certain way, but we are thinking beings. We don't have to act on our instincts. We can choose.

Gary Taubes wrote a book about the science of weight,  Good Calories, Bad Calories, where a major point he made is that we gain and lose weight due to things we cannot control.  One of the ways I remember what he said was a chicken-and-egg analogy - do we gain weight because we eat, or do we eat because we need to gain weight?  He pointed out that teenagers in growth spurts eat absurd amounts of food, but no-one believes that they grow because they eat - we all assume they eat because they need the energy to grow.  So, he says, there are times and forces that will make your body put on fat, and responding to those forces will drive you to eat.

I just went to double check the spelling of his name, and see that he has a new book coming out!  And the title is perfect for this topic: Why We Get Fat.  It comes out the end of December, but I know I'll be reading it over New Year's.

But, barring any enormous new insights, back to my current thinking....

I believe there are forces that propel your body to add or subtract weight. The change of seasons is definitely one of them. But, I am a human being. I cannot control chemical reactions inside my body.  I can, however, control my behavior.  Yes, it gets harder when the forces are pushing me in a different direction. Yes, it's not fair that my Norwegian ancestors survived those cold dark winters by evolving a thrifty gene that conserves energy to increase the odds of surviving till spring. Life isn't fair, and as a rational being, I can examine my behavior and act how I choose.

The facts are stark:  I am sleeping more than any time since snowmeggedon in February last year, yet I am stumbling with fatigue. I am burning less calories than any time since then and every footstep is an effort. My eating is up slightly from where it has been for the past several months, but I am hungry and mouthy both all the time.  But I have it in my power to affect this behavior.

First, go ahead and sleep. I will try to get as much as the body tells me it needs.

Next, move, dammit!  Keep adding in activities as much as possible. I am doing my two or three trips to personal training each week, but I need much more than that. Based partly on a suggestion from my friend Kim, and partly on the stairclimbing tips from Ms. Bitch Cakes, I took some reading I needed to do and wandered the stairwells while reading. No prizes for speed or gracefulness, but I spent about a half hour with my report and probably got nearly a hundred extra calories burned.  I work on the ninth floor of a ten-story building, so I will continue to have opportunities (today, I walked down all 9 flights and back up four of them when I was fetching my lunch.)  Tonight, I braved the cold to walk to my kids house and back - I know from experience that's another hundred calories.

The food:  this is the biggest problem. I need to log it all, even when the truth is so ugly.  I need to work out how to get portion control taken away from me. I do yogurt-like containers of cottage cheese for breakfast, in spite of the horrible waste of resources in the individual serving packaging. I need to buy pre-packaged salads at Trader Joe's for lunches again, if I'm not going to take the time or effort to go walking for a fancy salad from Cosi.  Dinners - that's where I need to be rational and on my guard, conscious as I plan and serve.  Tonight, I get credit for deciding not to add garlic bread to the spaghetti supper - I can keep small portions of pasta, but the bread would have been additive not to mention addictive.

Despite all this angst, I'm actually doing OK on both fitness and weight-loss fronts. I am so proud of my upper body strength, I'm going to go do push-ups in the gym at work in front of the guys. I avoided the scale during the Thanksgiving break (just accidentally of course, my morning routine was off) and Monday's weight was a full three-and-a-half pounds above the average of the week before, (which had been consistent with my tiny but clearly downward trend).  But Monday's number was fleeting water weight; Tuesday's weight was one pound down, and by this morning the remaining two and a half pounds had all been peed back out.  So I'm back in the ball game.  I need to keep reminding myself:  I cannot control the number on the scale, but I can control my behavior.  I can choose how I want to be.

I AM NOT A REPTILE.

The Less I Do, the Less I Do

It's so true that just as activity breeds activity, so unabridged becomes a state of being. I had a particularly slug-like week. I cleared the decks so I would have time to cook, and then ended up not having to do much at all. It was wonderful, and I was filled with ambitious plans for all the extra time.

But basically I laid around and vegetated. I read three books and saw three movies. I kept my gym appointments and even added a run one morning. But I did no chores, took no walks, did a little on-line shopping for the kids, and slept.

I've been sleeping more than eight hours most nights, with restless periods in the middle eating into it's value to me. It's got to be the lack of light. Even before it turned cold this week, I just wanted to huddle under the covers and doze and read and doze. Yesterday was a predictably slow day at work, but I did not bring my gym bag and couldn't convince myself to venture out for a walk. I stayed in my office and was quite productive and creative, in a very sedentary and calorie-conserving way.

But I was up and out early this morning, first to the gym then up to the boat to take her apart for the winter. A little more outdoor time is what I need, to get some sunshine deep into my reptile brain.

It's the coldest it's been so far this year, but I'm wearing my fleece-lined jeans that haven't fit for at least a couple of years, so things are not all bad. I'm warm and pleased with myself, a good combination

Got to keep accountability here and food tracking consciousness going, or it will be so easy to just slide back into bread and pasta with a book each night.

- iPhone uPdate

Sleep versus Exercise

It's really come down to this - I can sleep or I can exercise.  Right now, sleep is winning.  I am just so very very busy at work I don't have a second to step out. And I don't get home early, and so dinner is late, then I want to spend a bit of time with the kids, then I'm going to bed late, and the very last thing I want to do is get up early and go exercise.  I've had some very low totals on "calories burned" this week. I am so very inactive during the office day, and then not doing much afterwards beyond dinner with the family.  My step totals for the days are also pretty pathetic.

Obviously the self pity is washing over me in waves. Along with enormous fatigue - though its only 9:30 and I got nearly eight hours of sleep last night.  I'm actually getting a decent amount of sleep most nights, but my body is craving more. This is partly due to the seasons and the time change - the loss of light drives that reptile brain to want to hibernate. Once I fill up with blubber first, that is.  I tried going down in my basement to NordicTrak, since I wasn't up and out of the house to the gym. I got some exercise in, though my magic counting device was not overly impressed. It seems to really like running best, followed by fast walking.

Oh well, its the weekend, followed by a holiday week.  I've been tracking my food diligently, and I've mostly kept my intake low commensurate with my low activity levels. I should be able to get some exercise each day on the weekend, bumping up the total for the week.  Fast walking is likely the ticket. Should be decent weather.

What is my strategy for the coming week? Can I give myself free rein on Thanksgiving, as long as I monitor and control the rest of the time? I should be able to do that.  Sigh. Not inspired. Just go to bed.

Ten Push Ups!

This is a woman who can do ten push-ups - regular boy push-ups, that is!  I am absurdly pleased with myself for being able to do that.  But, too tired to write any more.

Work is very very busy.  I like what I'm doing, but the days are jammed up so intensely that I am not even getting in my minimum number of steps. I'm just in one meeting after another, and my armband device shows that I'm doing nothing, except about every hour walking to a different conference room for another meeting...