Practicing Whole30

I'm seriously contemplating doing the Whole30 challenge, especially if I can do it with family members. It's basically the same thing as Paleo, but without the pseudo-science of trying to eat as out ancestors may or may not have eaten.  Instead, the focus is on eliminating whole spectrums of potentially irritating foods- but only for 30 days.  It's all about proteins and especially vegetables, mostly cooks at home from fresh ingredients (so you actually know what you are eating).

I may start it up in July.  It will be hard to eliminate dairy, which for me is a big source of richness. As I think about how I want to eat for the rest of my life, I also think I want to eat more legumes, and less meat.  

So I've been reading labels, big time.  Cooking from scratch is truly the only way to control things.  I went to farmers market on Saturday last and overbought.  I was too busy and too tired to do as much cooking as I had hoped.  But I did roast a couple of bunches of radishes, and steamed a big bowl of broccoli. So this morning I sautéed an onion, and tossed in the pre-roasted radishes. I put that on the plate, then tossed in the broccoli to heat it up, and added that to the plate. Lastly, in the same unwashed skillet, I fried a couple of eggs.  This was actually more food than I could eat at once, but I knew I'd be away and otherwise I'd just be throwing it out.

This breakfast (and especially the photo) are an homage to Team_Sherwood on Instagram. 

The Cruise

This may have been the voyage from hell, but only if hell is sweet, soft, boozy, and has really good food.

My extended family signed up for a twelve-day big cruise to the Baltic.  We love cruising, and like to have many family members there. We don't need to spend all our time together, but we interact enough to keep things interesting.  My brother and sister-in-law, two of the kids, my brother-in-law, and my mother came along.

Sadly, the second night out, I woke to my mother crying "Help! Help!".  She had fallen as she got out of bed and headed to the bathroom, and hurt herself badly. There was blood, and she couldn't get up.  The emergency services and medical center on the ship were quick and efficient, but she was (is) still hurt.  They patched her up (the cuts not bad) and took xrays of her back and knee.  She hurt her back badly, but nothing showed as broken on the xrays.  For the rest of the voyage, she needed a wheel chair, to have someone with her at all hours, and intimate assistance with hygine. Of course, the family helped me, but all the intimate care (and night time interruptions) was mine.  Due to her failure to get any better in her back, the ship's doctor sent us to an emergency room in Stockholm, where we spent a sleepless night waiting for xrays, which also confirmed nothing was broken. That day was the only viable opportunity to leave the trip early, but my mother refused to go ("I don't want to ruin your vacation" "You are spending all your time shrieking or whimpering in pain and I'm spending all my time mopping up your urine - I'm sorry but you already have!").  With my utter exhaustion, I wasn't capable of making arrangements in the face of her obstinancy.

The trip home several days later was awful, watching her grey face as she simply endured, though I upgraded her to business class (which then was bumped for no more money all the way to first class with a lay-flat bed and a more private rest room).  I skipped going to my house, got her to bed in her apartment, and slept on the floor in the next room.  I arranged for my nephew to pick up my dogs, one of whom had major emergency surgery the day before we left and would need his stitches removed soon.  We were able to see her doctor in her continuing care community first thing the next morning (and they had wheelchairs to borrow to get her there). She was admitted to the short-term rehap nursing home they have there later that afternoon, where finally someone else took responsibility for her.  I slept like a log for ten hours.  I was supposed to climb back on an airplane and take my youngest out to the midwest for freshman orientation, but her father stepped up and did that.

My mother had a lengthy MRI on Friday, and we'll go see the orthopedic surgeon on Monday to see if there is anything operable or some way to fix the pain.  This means I'm not going back to work as scheduled, another bit of anxiety.

So aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did it go?

How about this:  I spent twelve days on a cruise ship, for the most part ate everything I wanted to eat, drank not a little alcohol, and gained not a single pound.  Nothing, nada, same as when I left.

How did this happen?  It seemed to me I was eating a lot of desserts and drinking quite a bit.  But I did really pay attention to what I ate and drank.  I thought carefully every time before eating or drinking, "do I really want this?".  It was balanced with what I had already had, and what I would be planning to have later that day.  I ate things I do not normally eat - bread and pasta - but not all the time and not as if it didn't matter. I did not feel bad about leaving food on my plate if I didn't like it (rare) or I felt full.  I never felt deprived.  A couple of times I felt bad from eating too much, and that helped make future decisions easier.  For reasons of hygine, everything is served to you on a dish (no scooping your own stuff from a hot table) so there was automatic portion control, always a problem for me.

Mixology Class

So I'm not suddenly a super ninja intuitive eater.  I got home and ate a giant helping of the only sweet thing in my cupboard - all there was.  When I left on the cruise, I was up about ten pounds from my goal weight I was at in early December. Given the trend, I really expected to have gained weight.  I've been evaluating my goals, and trying to decide how I'm going to eat for the rest of my life.

Another thing I did on the ship was use the fitness center.  Three times (ok, not a lot in 12 days but something) I went and ran on the treadmill, then stretched and worked with weights.  The running really really helped calm me down, and the weights and stretching made me feel good.  How nice to be doing what is good for me, and it feels good.

When I could step away from my mother, there were definite highlights on the cruise.  We had a lovely day trip to Berlin - a city I had never seen.  And the small city of Talinn in Estonia is very cute.  Perhaps my favorite moment was sitting in the square drinking pear cider with my nephew and my sister-in-law.

I had a full day ashore in St. Petersburg, touring Catherine's Palace and a whirlwind through L'Hermitage.  In Gotenburg (Sweden) there was a fun kayaking trip through the harbor and around the medieval city, using the old moat-turned-canal.  And in Kiel, Germany, there was a tall ship event going on, so watching the harbor traffic from the deck was very fun.

Here's to the sandwich generation:  college orientation went well, and the prospect of the empty nest is more appealing than not.  But new responsibilities at the other end of the spectrum will tie me close to home for a while.

I am probably going to try the Whole30 food experiment in July, with my brother and sister-in-law.  So more to come, as things evolve with my mother and with me.

Moderation in Nothing

Many things to say on the topic in the title but very quick post before I am distracted. 

I love running!

Just back from short slow run to my music in the cool drizzle. From the first moment I was jazzed, even though it's been a week since I last ran. My motivation is I'm a month out from my local 5K- the one I walk to-my first one ever. 

It felt very good the whole time, which included walk breaks. I strutted back up the hill to my house. I want to capture this feeling and send it my way when I'm huddled on the couch. 

My Fancy Running Watch

I treated myself to a fancy new running watch before Christmas. It's a Garmin 630, and it is very cool.

This is a smart watch, meaning it talks to my iPhone. Actually, mostly it listens to my iphone, receiving texts, notifications, weather, and a few other stats. But mostly it doesn't go back the other way - it doesn't send messages, except for uploading my activity information to the phone.  Also, I believe I can control my phone's music from the watch, though I haven't actually tried it. (That's because the version of music I have on my phone presents a screen telling me to do a free trial of Apple's streaming service and there is no way to move off that screen without signing up.  So I'm not using the music on my phone.)

I can download apps, some free and some paid, that could add some more features. So far, I've experimented with different watch faces (I like to see moving watch hands, not a digital read-out).

It's a great running watch. What makes it a running watch is the built-in GPS.  I wear a chest-strap heart rate monitor (and I had to upgrade to the newest one to use with this watch), it it's so smart it does a bunch of running dynamics - more than you could ever want to know about how you move when you run. It does stride length, steps per second, how high I bounce, how left/right symmetrical I am, how long each foot stays on the ground. It can measure stress through heart rate variability. It prescribes a recovery time after every run. It reports your maximum oxygen uptake rate and your lactate threshold, both of which can be improved through training.  

The watch is also a daily activity tracker, counting steps, attempting to calculate total calorie burn, and measuring sleep.

I love data, and what is more interesting than data about me? So obviously I love this stuff.  But, it's not all that accessible. The numbers are reported out on the watch, and with poking and swiping and pushing of buttons everything can be found, but it's not that easy.  There is an iphone app that shows daily stats and more detailed stats about specific timed runs. The app is pretty, but I'm not wild for it. There is also a computer dashboard.  I love the analysis of the runs. The trend information is less interesting.

Garmin world, like Fitbit world, allows you to make connections and do challenges and see how others are doing. But it doesn't seem as cool as fitbit, the way you interact with friends.  I don't have any actual friends on Garmin, so perhaps that's part of the problem. 

I'm still wearing my fitbit, and they are coming out with a smart watch version soon.  Garmin has a gajillion activity trackers, including some cool looking ones. I won't abandon fitbit, for one main reason:  There is no good data export on the Garmin for activity tracking.  They have improved the export from two years ago, but you can't get daily data for more than a week at a time. The data comes out labeled "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday..." so if you do several weeks repetitively, you end up with a bunch of identical spreadsheets with no identifying marks. I want to be able to review and summarize my data, and daily totals is the minimum level of detail that I want, and Garmin just doesn't make it easy.  Fitbit is much better, exporting several variables for wider date ranges, and well labelled.

BTW, the crystal on the Garmin cracked, for no apparent reason. I assume it will be covered by warranty, but I've not heard back from customer support yet.

Toys!  It's part of my motivation to get me off the couch. Whatever works.

Oh Hi

No big deal, just been living life. Oh, and was not able to lose the five (plus) pounds I gained over the holidays. And, as long as I'm reporting, I've been a slug on the couch, barely moving even by my standards.

Not ready to write about my terrible evening binges.  So I'll write about my favorite gadgets instead.

Crossing the Line

This time of year is filled with family birthdays and anniversaries. My brother-in-law turns 50 today!  This is a significant milestone, for sure.  I went running this morning as a celebration for our running club organizer who turns 50 on Monday.  And this morning, she saw her goal weight on the scale, the goal that she set this spring.

But I did it too. Today, for the first time since August 2000, and only the second time for as long as I've been keeping track, I weigh below my goal weight.  This has been my mental goal since 1988, people!  How about that!!!!

Of course losing 5 pounds in less than a week is almost all water. This is what happens when you switch suddenly to a very low carb diet.  I bounced back down as fast as I bounced up.  But it sure isn't 50 pounds of water!  And this weight is fifty pounds less than I weighed in 1995, and again for New Year's 1998, when I kicked off The Big Loss, Part 1.

What I want to do is get to a point where my average weight is my goal weight, so I'm not completely done with the losing weight phase. And we see from last week's post that I'll never be done with maintenance.  But I'm doing the happy dance, as I plan what I'm going to eat at tonight's birthday dinner!

!Bounce!

I got tired of tracking my food all the time, I relaxed about what I weighed and opened up my food choices, the Eating Season opened with Halloween, stress at work escalated rapidly while remaining high at home, and so exercise waned and late night pigouts increased.  The result was inevitable.

This shows the calendar year. The gridlines are 5 pounds apart.

I stopped tracking in mid-September, after logging food faithfully for maybe 80% of the whole year. For a while I coasted on my good habits, and continued to lose some weight, getting on one memorable day within one pound of my (somewhat arbitrary) goal weight. Yay!  I've got this! My life is changed. I'm a genius. I'm no longer a fat person and I don't need to think about it all the time.

But in the very recent past the trend has been bad. I continue to weigh every day (thanks to the wifi connected scale) and so have immediate feedback. I have access to the data via two taps on the internet in the palm of my hand at any time, so I don't ignore the evidence. Yesterday's weight popped up and crossed a five pound line, and all the alarm bells went to red alert.  So vague mental resolutions to "do better" were replaced with a firm commitment.

There is no secret to why I'm gaining weight, even without the actual data since I haven't logged food. I love food truck lunches, and even though I go for salads and other green vegetable-based dishes they have many hidden carbs, such as sugar in the salad dressing for banh mi salad and glorious garlic soaked croutons in the best caesar salads. But I could probably have handled that, at least for maintenance, but those evenings plopped in front of the TV with multiple trips to find chocolate all over the house - and even to stuff on left over main courses, anything to fill the hole that seems to yaw open each night.

Yesterday was Day One. My plan is to track, and to stop eating after 8:30 pm.  These are rigid rules. I constantly bargain with myself, and I need to stop that! Further, for the next couple of weeks, I want to go pure low carb - detox my system from the sugar and occasional starches that have crept in. For the next two weeks, calories don't matter, but carbs do - I'm going to target the lowest recommended level - 20 net carbs a day. ("Net carbs" are total carbohydrate grams minus fiber grams. It encourages filling up leafy greens, high fiber countering the carbs within.)

The joy of low carbing is you shed water stored throughout your body and so today was already two and a half pounds below yesterday's high peak weight. No single day means much on weight, but of course it's better to see the scale go down than up, even though intellectually I know it doesn't matter.

Of course the resolution required me to start with an expensive food shopping to set me up with favorite foods.  Caesar salads (will have to buy a roast chicken tonight), with excellent parmesan cheese and good greens. Easy grab guacamole, feta and olives, fancy flavored (but unsweetened) water, chicken salad for lunch today. A good habit I have to re-energize is bringing my lunch to work. It's so much cheaper, great when I'm pressed for time, and overcomes impulses at the glorious food truck city right outside my building. Instead of waiting on line at the trucks I can take a brief walk for roughly the same time.

This resolution is intended to last until Thanksgiving Day. I'm posting this so I have accountability. I'm thinking chunks of time, at least two weeks at a crack, may get me through this season. There is Thanksgiving, I'll be visiting my brother after that - he and his wife are real foodies, and I'll have more fun if I'm relaxed and have choices. Plus alcohol. But then I could have a three week stretch before Christmas.  There will be parties and food at the office throughout the time, but that will be no problem, if I have a plan to eat the good stuff just over the horizon.

The evening thing has been a persistant problem. Surely less tempting stuff in the house is good. But I think I need to have a mental but absolute cutoff - a virtual lock that appears on the kitchen at 8:30 each night. If the cravings are bad, I know from experience the best response is to leave the house with the dog and put some miles on, up and down the hills of my neighborhood.  It's cold and dark now, but I treated myself to a cool reflective running jacket specifically for this time. I like wearing it, which is part of the silly motivation, and whatever works is great.

So that's my thinking. I'm committed through Thanksgiving, and I'll reassess afterwards. What's your holiday plan?