Burn baby burn

It is times like these, when I slog, head hung, back to the blogosphere after a month of no posts, that I am very glad I never really promoted this thing in the first place.  It was always for me, first and foremost, and I just didn't feel the need to post.  So I didn't.

Today I am compelled to write, and it has nothing to do with weight.

The Johannes Mehserle verdict was announced yesterday, and last night Oakland burned.  I wasn't near any of it, but I have many coworkers who live in Oakland, and I hope they're ok.

I woke up this morning to photos of a city on fire.  And more news of BP.  And more stories of people walking away from mortgages.  And I went over to fark.com, my favorite internet hangout, and I found I just couldn't face the vitriol and bile of the comments threads this morning.  I scoured a few tabs looking for a story that I knew would have funny, cheerful comments instead of a bunch of people flaming each other into oblivion and found nothing.

So I'm writing this post because I'm tired of reading misery.  It's 7:30 a.m.  I haven't even made it into work yet.  As Terry Pratchett once wrote, "It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness."  This post is my little candle of happiness in the dark abyssal forest of today's news.  And while I will never win any awards for my analogies, that one was intentional.  Because in California, forests like to burn.  If you're reading this, light your own candle and post something happy.  Set the forest on fire.

Ok, so where's the happiness?  Coming right up!

First of all, a site I don't check nearly often enough.  The Great News Network
It says we should all call our moms today: http://www.greatnewsnetwork.org/index.php/news/article/mothers_phone_call_can_be_as_soothing_as_a_hug/

Next up, some selections from my "Break the funk" playlist that I pull out at times like these. It has:

Some excellent gospel, courtesy of The Boss himself:



Some guys in suits and sunglasses with harmonicas and the BEST DANCE MOVES EVER:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1ehMrK3itM&feature=related



Finally, some Leslie Nielson hilarity:





Now it's your turn.  Post something happy today!

One step forward, n steps back

I was absolutely psyched to start my exercise routine again on Saturday after taking the week off.  I thought about going to my crossfit class, but I was a bit hung over and I wanted to savor my morning, and I didn't really want to shock my system quite that way.  So instead I went for a gentle jog and it felt great.  I loved it.

Saturday night, as we all know, I masqueraded as a European.

Sunday is my rest day, so I was out walking through a park when my foot started to hurt.  A lot.  When it hadn't gotten better by Wednesday, I decided a doctor was in order. 

I saw the doctor who was available and not my regular doctor.  She had no idea what was wrong and seemed very unfamiliar with sports injuries.  I wanted to rule out a stress fracture, and she was confident there was no bone breakage.  She said that it was soft tissue damage of some sort and prescribed a regiment of rest, no high heels, no motorcycle, and lots of ibuprofen.  Boooooring.

What she really couldn't tell me was how to a) reintroduce exercise into my life in a safe way and b) avoid exacerbating the injury.  So I called my coach.

"Carl, I've got this pain in my foot and it won't go away."
"Saturday night, were you out standing a bar in new high heels?"
"What?  Yes.  How'd you know?"
"Plantar Fasciitis.  Do the ibuprofen thing, but don't be afraid of the gym.  Come to CrossFit Saturday, it'll be good for you."

I won't lie, there was fist pumping. 

NSV!

It wasn't a fantastic week, but it wasn't the worst week either.  My calorie consumption seems to be back on track.  I feel more comfortable about it.  It's not perfect, but it's not bad.  And my low carb plan worked.  I was far more in control of what I ate than I'd felt in a while.  I had cravings, but I could ignore them.

Last week was also a week of no exercise and it ended yesterday when I went for a run.  Now I'm back and ready to kick butt in the gym!

Oh, and last night.  Let me just tell you about last night.  Last night I went to my favorite dive bar, sat down, ordered a drink, and started talking to a cute Irish gentleman.  A very cute, very drunk Irish dude.  At first he thought I was European (thank you patent leather pumps!), and then he started asking me odd questions:

"Do you run?"
Not really.
"Do you swim then?"
No.
"Well, clearly you're in really good shape.  You look really athletic.  What do you do to exercise?"

Ladies (and gents, if you're around), I almost cried.  I've worked so hard and spent so much time in the gym, and someone actually noticed.  And while I'm sure he was trying to pick me up, I'm also pretty sure his comments were based in fact.  He saw my arm muscles and thought I looked good. 

I was walking on air that night.

Goals for the week

You may remember that I set goals last week and didn't do so well at sticking to them.  I dug into why, came up with some theories, and then was so sick of everything weight-related that I took 3 days off from all things diet.

Well I'm back, refreshed, and armed with a plan of action.

I spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking about what I wanted in terms of lifestyle and why I wasn't happy with my results last week.  The thing that bothered me the most about last week was not my weight and it was not, surprisingly enough, my calorie intake either.  Those things were on the radar, but they were a distant second and third to my primary concern which was control.

I did not feel in control last week.  Or last month.  I wasn't eating the right things and I wasn't eating for the right reasons.  Setting goals around calorie intake and tracking are all well and good, but meeting those goals really hinges on being in control of what you eat, and I didn't feel like I had that kind of command over my food choices.

Obviously, everything I eat is my choice.  And I know from experience that losing weight by calorie counting is just plain hard.  It's hard to say no to hunger.  But last week wasn't just about hunger.  It was about cravings too.  I'd be hungry because I was restricting calories and I'd be craving something stuffed with carbohydrates which wouldn't keep me full.  I was fighting a battle on two fronts and losing both.

The plan for this week is primarily to get the cravings back under control.  I plan on doing that with what I know works: low carb, low gluten eating.  It would be no gluten, but I like croutons on my salad.  I want to spend the week eating low carb and then see what kind of effect that has on my cravings.  If I can stay within my 1700 cal/day goal, so much the better.  But that's not my primary worry right now.

Enumerated, here's the list of goals:

• Low carb, low gluten eating 4 out of 5 days (it's Tuesday now, and I'll reevaluate on Sunday).  For me this means:
• No bread at breakfast or lunch
• For now, dinner is ok because I spend the next 8 hours asleep.
• No snacking on pretzels, cheez its, pita crisps, etc.  These are all freely available in my office, and although it hasn't been a problem, I'm calling it out here.  The dark chocolate stash is still fair game though, as that doesn't seem to affect my cravings.
• Assuming the low carb goal is hit, determine whether this eating pattern keeps my cravings under control.
• Track every day

 I've finally escaped the crazy hormone roller coaster I was on (for now) and this is the week that this plan has the absolute best chance of success.  I'm hoping that this diet will also keep my hormones a bit more in check.  We shall see.

You'll notice there's no exercise goal this week and that's because I'm taking the week off.  I've been training very hard for a few months, and I've got a back injury that needs some TLC.  My training starts again on Saturday.  I may attempt some low grade pilates during the week though.  I get weird when I don't work out.

It's a new week, with a new set of goals, which means it's time for a new theme song.  I'm a metal girl and I need to feel like I can destroy whole worlds when I'm working out, so from my workout playlist, I give you Disturbed - Indestructible:

"I'll have you know,
That I've become...

Indestructible.
Determination that is incorruptible.
From the other side.
A terror to behold.
Annihilation will be unavoidable.
Every broken enemy will know,
That their opponent had to be invincible.
Take a last look around while you're alive,
I'm an indestructible master of war."

I told you so

When I started my little weight project, the first thing I did was to go around and find stacks of weight loss blogs, because misery loves company and because I decided I wasn't going to tell anyone in real life what I was up to.  I needed moral support, and if anonymous bloggers are where it's at, fine by me.

I read a lot of blogs, and I started noticing a few very interesting similarities among them.  Specifically, what worked and what didn't.  The bloggers who were the most successful at losing and maintaining all did two things:

1. Exercise regularly
2. Cut out most or all carbs and sugars

The most interesting thing to me was that they all came to these decisions independently of each other.  Every blogger talks about how great exercise is, how good it makes her feel, how much better it makes her body look.  And everyone who has reevaluated the role of carbohydrates in her diet has come to the realization that cutting carbs makes the cravings and the binges go away.

We will get to why this is important in a minute, but now I'm going to do a literary swerve and talk about the week I've had.  You may remember that last Sunday, I put up some goals.  Specifically, I had goals regarding my caloric intake and exercise.  Well, I nailed the exercise, but I was a wreck on calories.  Yes, there were some hormones involved.  But I've cut calories before without too much trouble.  For some reason, this week I just couldn't summon up the willpower.  I didn't binge, and I stayed within about 2200 calories every day, which is maintenance level for me.  But I wasn't anywhere near the 1700 cal goal I set.

I was thinking about all this last night and wondering if maybe it was time to take a break from the loss game.  I was thinking maybe I was burnt out.  I know what I've done is nothing compared to every blog I read, both in terms of pounds lost and time spent doing it, but I have worked hard and I have accomplished a lot of what I set out to do.  And let me just say I'm thrilled with the results.  I look better than ever, I feel fantastic, I get compliments, and I'm very very proud.  If I never lost another pound I would still be really happy.

This morning I woke up and started making my breakfast and for the first time in months I thought about the success of my fellow bloggers and how they did it, and I remembered all my conclusions about exercising and cutting carbs.  As I was putting apple butter on my whole wheat english muffin.  Damn.

I'd started eating toast with my eggs at breakfast a few weeks ago.  I was trying to increase my calories enough at breakfast that I wouldn't spend the morning feeling hungry.  Adding some toast seemed to do the trick.  But now I'm wondering if maybe those added carbs are some of the reason that I've been having so much trouble staying within my calorie limits lately.  And I'm kicking myself because I knew this all along.  I knew that almost everyone who was really successful cut her carbs.  I knew that when I was doing well with weight loss I was eating almost no carbs whatsoever.  And yet I completely failed to see the connection between my morning toast and my inability to stick to my goals.

All that said (and if you only read one paragraph from this entry, make it this one), I am glad I set goals and I'm glad I didn't hit them.  If I hadn't made a point to say that I was going to track 5 days this week and I was going to stay within my calorie limits 5 days, I probably wouldn't have been frustrated enough to try to figure out what went wrong.  It was only because I made it a point publicize my goals that I knew full well I should be able to hit that I was spurred into action when those goals went unmet.

So where does this leave me with regard to being burnt out, going on maintenance for a bit, and being generally fed up?  Undecided.  I am frustrated at not hitting my goals and I am furious with myself that I didn't see this connection sooner and I am a bit burnt out, and the fact that I have a new plan of attack isn't really motivating me right now. 

Another lesson I'm learning is patience (another entry for another time) and patience means I don't have to decide all of this right now.  I can take a few days and let this all sink in before I decide on a course of action.  So that's what I'm going to do.  I'm headed off to see a friend for a few days anyway, so I'm going to go to LA, enjoy seeing my friend, and return on Monday and reevaluate.

Have an excellent Memorial Day!

So how do y'all do this then?*

Remember Sunday?  Remember when I was all pumped and recommitted to my goals and ready to go balls-to-the-wall all week to get back on track?

I'm so cute when I'm naive, don't you think? 

It was a good idea.  Solid plan.  Go back to doing all the things I was doing before that worked.  Count calories again.  And really, I've been pretty good.  I haven't skipped any exercise.  I have tracked, every day.  And while I haven't always been within 1700 calories, I've usually been within 1800, which is close enough.  Except for last night, when there was comfort wine and extra pasta and a grand total of about 2300 calories.  Oops. 

Here's the problem.  It's that TOM, which means that for the last week, my hormones have been whacked the hell out.  I shouldn't complain, because I don't get PMS.  But I do get moody.  I do get demotivated and a bit depressed.  Oh, and hungry.  Really, agonizingly hungry.  I looked all over the tubez and there are a lot of forums where women ask variations on the question "Why do I turn into a ravaging insatiable hosebeast for a week?" and they always get replies of "You burn more calories, duh."

Last I checked, my college degree was not issued by the University of It Stands To Reason**, so I did some fact checking.  I found a lot of random people saying that the week before a period, metabolic rates go up.  But I couldn't find any studies on the subject that were more recent than 1923 (yeah really), and no one agreed on how much the variance was.  Some said 4%, some said as much as 10%.  Which means there are a lot of people out there playing armchair biologist on forums, but no real actual science.

So what's a girl to do?

This house has moved on from pre-TOM to TOM-proper so rationality is returning in fits and starts, and hopefully a decreased appetite along with it.  But I think in future months, I'll just allow myself an extra 200-300 calories per day in the week before.  If my BMR actually does increase during that time then this is something I should be doing anyway.  A 500 calorie daily deficit is reasonable; 800 calories is not.  If it's all in my head, then even adding an extra 300 calories will still mean I'm running a deficit every day and although my loss rate will be slower, it will continue. 

What do you ladies do to cope?

*I'm not actually Southern.  But "y'all" is a great word, so I'm stealing it.
**With apologies to Terry Pratchett.

Weekly Weigh In and Reflection

Starting weight: 159 (3/17/2010)
This morning's scale reading: 150.6
Official weight, as dictated by the trend line: 150.7
Pounds lost this week: 0.1
Total pounds lost: 8.3

Can you say "plateau"?  :)

I've been pretty lax about my commitment to the cause.  There's been personal drama, a few vacations, and a feeling that actually, I look pretty great.  My motivation to keep losing that last 5 pounds is waning. 

I need to kick my own ass into high gear this week.  So I'm going back to my roots.  This blog was originally about lessons I learned, and it's time to enumerate them.  I've figured out a lot in two months and I need to remind myself of this.  I'm also setting some goals for the week.  Without further ado, here's a partial list of stuff I know now that I didn't know before:

Order a glass of water with every drink.  It's a way to keep myself hydrated and pace my drinking.  And it cuts my bar tab in half. 

My perfect breakfast: 2 fried eggs, a slice of toast with butter, and coffee with sugar and cream.  After much experimentation, I've discovered that this is the meal that keeps me full all morning.  It's not just the amount of calories.  It's the combination of protein, carbs, caffeine, and fat.  Speaking of which...

I do not fear fat in my food.  Even though I count calories, it's not fat I'm worried about.  It turns out that fat by itself will fill me up appropriately.  It's carbs I fear.  Carbs make me hungry soon after eating.  So now I eat bacon grease and butter, but I go easy on the toast.

A meal doesn't have to involve seconds.  This one is huge.  I didn't even learn it as a lesson, I just changed my behavior without realizing it.  I never have second helpings with any meal at this point.  It doesn't even occur to me to do so.  This, more than anything, is the reason I think I'll be able to maintain a weight, even if I don't lose anymore.

Failure is not scary because failure is just one day out of the rest of my life.  Anyone can recover from one day.  In the grand scheme of life, one day is nothing.  So if I want to experiment with my diet or my exercise plan, or if I get so discouraged that I want to quit, it's ok.  If my diet doesn't work, or if I hate my new exercise, that's ok.  Because it's just one day.  Or one week, even.  I can recover from one week.  After all, in only two months, I recovered from ten years. 

Now.  This week's goals:

• Track five out of seven days
• Stay within 1700 calories five out of seven days

That's all for now.  Good luck with your week!