I did my 6 mile hilly run in 1 hour and 8 minutes this morning. The last time I did the same route it took me 1 hour and 12 minutes, so that is a 4 minute improvement. Not bad.
I weighed 154.6 this morning. Yesterday I ate 1,793 calories and 89 grams of protein.
Yesterday after work I wasn't tired and didn't have anything to do. I should have done something productive like swim, write, or cook, but I didn't. Jack and I ended up playing a game of Parcheesi (I won!!) and watching the Voice. It's been a while since I've come home from work anything but totally worn out and exhausted. Now that work is normalizing, I need to start working on making my evenings more productive. I have a lot I want to accomplish. If I have energy left over at the end of the day I want to use it productively.
I heard back from Ben at Endura Camp and finally got access to the Kansas City Tri website. It will take effort on my part, but somehow I will find a community of people to train with.
Hmmm...not a lot to write about this morning, I guess. Tonight we bowl. Wish us luck!!
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
9/24/13: No Trouble Sleeping Last Night!!
The good news is that I didn't have any trouble sleeping last night. I woke up once and wondered for a minute where Jack was and then fell right back asleep. This morning when I checked the Royals score from last night and saw that the game against Seattle (in Seattle) went into extra innings, I realized why Jack wasn't yet in bed at midnight last night. The Royals Won! Again! In Extra Innings! Again! Go Royals!! They are statistically still in it, though they are 3 games out with only 6 games left to play. Chances are slim that we will make the playoffs, but it already feels like we're having a post season, just getting to truly enjoy September baseball.
All is well on the training front. Yesterday was my day off and today I did upper body strength training. We have really kicked the strength training up a notch since all of my traveling is over and I can feel it!! I appreciate how toned my arms are getting and I can see the impact of the strength training everywhere. It feels good to be making progress again.
I was told about a program called Enduracamp yesterday and I looked it up. It is run by a 20 time Ironman competitor who has set up training programs specifically geared to triathletes and other endurance sports. The gym is pretty close to home, closer than the gym I am going to now. It costs $110 a month to attend as many training sessions/classes/group runs & rides as you want. They emphasize strength training to improve speed, among other things. You can also pay by the class. I will be done with all of my prepaid personal training sessions at Aspen by the end of October. I am thinking about attending a few classes at Enduracamp between now and then. If I like it, and think it is a good fit for me, I may switch to that program. I feel like it will be good to train with people that are specifically geared to the sport I have chosen. It will also save me about $100/month, which is bonus!! I hope it works out. I haven't checked to see how early in the morning they hold classes, yet. That could be a deal killer.
Yesterday's calories were a little high, 2,018, and protein was 98 grams. I was not tracking my calories throughout the day and just entered everything into my phone this morning. I need to do a better job actually tracking the calories as I go. This morning I weighed 155.0 pounds. I think the little gain was because I ate a a fairly large snack pretty late yesterday evening. If I had done a better job tracking calories through the day, I would have eaten a lighter snack last night.
Today is a new day. I have to go to the dentist this afternoon. I really dislike this dentist, but the good news is I got a hearty recommendation for a new dentist. Today will be the last time I see my old dentist (Jack likes her - I think she is mean. She has no bedside manner at all!) and if I have follow up work that needs to be done, I plan on going to the new dentist. I am glad to have finally received a strong recommendation for a new dentist!!
I guess that's it for now. Have a great day!!
All is well on the training front. Yesterday was my day off and today I did upper body strength training. We have really kicked the strength training up a notch since all of my traveling is over and I can feel it!! I appreciate how toned my arms are getting and I can see the impact of the strength training everywhere. It feels good to be making progress again.
I was told about a program called Enduracamp yesterday and I looked it up. It is run by a 20 time Ironman competitor who has set up training programs specifically geared to triathletes and other endurance sports. The gym is pretty close to home, closer than the gym I am going to now. It costs $110 a month to attend as many training sessions/classes/group runs & rides as you want. They emphasize strength training to improve speed, among other things. You can also pay by the class. I will be done with all of my prepaid personal training sessions at Aspen by the end of October. I am thinking about attending a few classes at Enduracamp between now and then. If I like it, and think it is a good fit for me, I may switch to that program. I feel like it will be good to train with people that are specifically geared to the sport I have chosen. It will also save me about $100/month, which is bonus!! I hope it works out. I haven't checked to see how early in the morning they hold classes, yet. That could be a deal killer.
Yesterday's calories were a little high, 2,018, and protein was 98 grams. I was not tracking my calories throughout the day and just entered everything into my phone this morning. I need to do a better job actually tracking the calories as I go. This morning I weighed 155.0 pounds. I think the little gain was because I ate a a fairly large snack pretty late yesterday evening. If I had done a better job tracking calories through the day, I would have eaten a lighter snack last night.
Today is a new day. I have to go to the dentist this afternoon. I really dislike this dentist, but the good news is I got a hearty recommendation for a new dentist. Today will be the last time I see my old dentist (Jack likes her - I think she is mean. She has no bedside manner at all!) and if I have follow up work that needs to be done, I plan on going to the new dentist. I am glad to have finally received a strong recommendation for a new dentist!!
I guess that's it for now. Have a great day!!
Monday, September 23, 2013
9/23/13: Troubled Sleep
There are things about my job that I really like. The product we make is exceptional, we are on the cutting edge of technology, and I work with some very intelligent people. The flip side? A lot of mistakes have been made in the past, a foreign subsidiary was started with some less than honest partners, and it is all sort of coming to a head. We need to work through a lot of things and I've been thrown into the middle of it. Some of it I am handling well and some of it I am not handling as well. I have made some mistakes. Last night, the mistakes just kept rolling through my brain, one after another after another. I hate making mistakes at work, probably because they impact so many people. Last night, at about 1:30 in the morning, I couldn't get back to sleep because I kept thinking of all of the things I should have done differently.
My rational brain tells me to not be so hard on myself. There is a binder full of reasons why the events of the last year unfolded the way that they did and all of them were set in motion long before I walked in the door. Still, my brain gravitates towards the things I could have done differently. My tossing and turning woke Jack up at about 2:30 and he was able to help calm me down and finally I drifted back off to sleep around 3:00. Nights like that are rough.
Luckily, I had already decided that today was my day off, so I didn't need to get up early. I got plenty of sleep last night in spite of my tossing and turning since we went to bed early and I didn't get out of bed until after 6:00. With any luck at all, tonight will be a better night.
Jack and I had an exceptional afternoon at the K! Did you see that ball game? Score 0 to 0 going into the 10th. Texas was held scoreless in the 10th inning. Then we end up with bases loaded, 2 outs, and a full count with Justin Maxwell hitting against our ex-closer, Soria. Talk about tense! Then Maxwell hits it out of the park. A HUGE WALK OFF GRAND SLAM HOME RUN to win the game, win the series, give us a guaranteed winning season, keep us statistically alive for the wild card slot, and finish our last home game of the season. The crowd erupted!!!! It was by far my most exciting moment at a ball game. What a blast!!
Even before the spectacular 10th evening, we were having a lovely afternoon. The weather was perfect and we were enjoying each others' company. I, in particular, was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. It's amazing how I feel after a really hard workout like yesterday's brick. For the rest of the day I am filled with a sense of peace and joy. On my ride yesterday I ended up riding with a fellow cyclist for a while and we talked about the difference between training to get faster and just riding for seat time. When I was training for the AIDS Lifecycle ride, it was all about being able to get 100 miles done in a day, and riding long distances 7 days in a row. That is a certain kind of training. You have to pace yourself and really condition your body to spending all day in the saddle. It's kind of fun. You spend all day with friends, stop for coffee and lunch, and see a lot of beautiful scenery. It's extremely time consuming and after a while you realize that your whole life is about cycling, but that's OK because it's fun. Training for speed is completely different. I am not on my bike nearly as long, but the whole time I am on my bike I am pushing it and getting a serious cardio-vascular workout. I'm trying to condition myself to go faster and push harder. My fellow rider and I agreed; riding for speed for 24 miles is not fun, it's work. On the other hand, the residual effect of the workout is completely worth the 90 minutes of hard work. Thinking about this makes me realize that "having fun" and "happiness" don't necessarily go together. I've read about this and thought about this, before. You can do fun things, but you realize that while you feel a momentary sense of glee while you are doing them there is no lasting impact on your level of overall happiness. Yet when I do something very hard, like yesterday's brick, I am not having any fun at all, but for the rest of the day and several days afterwards, I have an underlying sense of happiness. My sister said she discovered this about five years ago, that she has to challenge herself either physically or intellectually almost every day to be happy. I am beginning to understand what she is talking about. Yes, I often have to drag myself onto my bike and into my running shoes, but once I've done it I am always glad I did.
Food continues to be fine. I don't have my phone in front of me at the moment so I don't know my exact calorie counts for the last couple of days, but they were within my target range. My weight was 154.2 again this morning. I am shooting for being below 153.8 by Sunday morning, to stay below my line.
Fall is here. I'm starting to look for warm cycling gear because I am committed to working out outside on as many weekends as possible through the winter. I'm not looking forward to the cold weather, but I am looking forward to indoor training even less. I'm hoping for a mild winter!!
My rational brain tells me to not be so hard on myself. There is a binder full of reasons why the events of the last year unfolded the way that they did and all of them were set in motion long before I walked in the door. Still, my brain gravitates towards the things I could have done differently. My tossing and turning woke Jack up at about 2:30 and he was able to help calm me down and finally I drifted back off to sleep around 3:00. Nights like that are rough.
Luckily, I had already decided that today was my day off, so I didn't need to get up early. I got plenty of sleep last night in spite of my tossing and turning since we went to bed early and I didn't get out of bed until after 6:00. With any luck at all, tonight will be a better night.
Jack and I had an exceptional afternoon at the K! Did you see that ball game? Score 0 to 0 going into the 10th. Texas was held scoreless in the 10th inning. Then we end up with bases loaded, 2 outs, and a full count with Justin Maxwell hitting against our ex-closer, Soria. Talk about tense! Then Maxwell hits it out of the park. A HUGE WALK OFF GRAND SLAM HOME RUN to win the game, win the series, give us a guaranteed winning season, keep us statistically alive for the wild card slot, and finish our last home game of the season. The crowd erupted!!!! It was by far my most exciting moment at a ball game. What a blast!!
Even before the spectacular 10th evening, we were having a lovely afternoon. The weather was perfect and we were enjoying each others' company. I, in particular, was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. It's amazing how I feel after a really hard workout like yesterday's brick. For the rest of the day I am filled with a sense of peace and joy. On my ride yesterday I ended up riding with a fellow cyclist for a while and we talked about the difference between training to get faster and just riding for seat time. When I was training for the AIDS Lifecycle ride, it was all about being able to get 100 miles done in a day, and riding long distances 7 days in a row. That is a certain kind of training. You have to pace yourself and really condition your body to spending all day in the saddle. It's kind of fun. You spend all day with friends, stop for coffee and lunch, and see a lot of beautiful scenery. It's extremely time consuming and after a while you realize that your whole life is about cycling, but that's OK because it's fun. Training for speed is completely different. I am not on my bike nearly as long, but the whole time I am on my bike I am pushing it and getting a serious cardio-vascular workout. I'm trying to condition myself to go faster and push harder. My fellow rider and I agreed; riding for speed for 24 miles is not fun, it's work. On the other hand, the residual effect of the workout is completely worth the 90 minutes of hard work. Thinking about this makes me realize that "having fun" and "happiness" don't necessarily go together. I've read about this and thought about this, before. You can do fun things, but you realize that while you feel a momentary sense of glee while you are doing them there is no lasting impact on your level of overall happiness. Yet when I do something very hard, like yesterday's brick, I am not having any fun at all, but for the rest of the day and several days afterwards, I have an underlying sense of happiness. My sister said she discovered this about five years ago, that she has to challenge herself either physically or intellectually almost every day to be happy. I am beginning to understand what she is talking about. Yes, I often have to drag myself onto my bike and into my running shoes, but once I've done it I am always glad I did.
Food continues to be fine. I don't have my phone in front of me at the moment so I don't know my exact calorie counts for the last couple of days, but they were within my target range. My weight was 154.2 again this morning. I am shooting for being below 153.8 by Sunday morning, to stay below my line.
Fall is here. I'm starting to look for warm cycling gear because I am committed to working out outside on as many weekends as possible through the winter. I'm not looking forward to the cold weather, but I am looking forward to indoor training even less. I'm hoping for a mild winter!!
Sunday, September 22, 2013
9/22/13: Just Finished This Week's Brick
I flipped my days around this weekend and yesterday Jack and I went for a 16 mile, untimed, bike ride and today I did my brick which was a 19.9 mile bike ride which I completed in 1 hour 18 minutes and a 4 mile run which took me 44.0 minutes. I didn't set any records, but I got it done!
We are headed to the Royals game this afternoon and I'd like to get to the gym for a lower body workout after that. We'll see if that happens, I think it is kind of iffy, as it will depend on how much time is left in the day after the game.
I'm kind of tired from my brick and I really need a shower before the game, so I guess I'll make this quick and sign off. Go Royals!!
We are headed to the Royals game this afternoon and I'd like to get to the gym for a lower body workout after that. We'll see if that happens, I think it is kind of iffy, as it will depend on how much time is left in the day after the game.
I'm kind of tired from my brick and I really need a shower before the game, so I guess I'll make this quick and sign off. Go Royals!!
Saturday, September 21, 2013
9/21/13: It's So Dark Out!!
The worst part about winter is the short days. I don't like the cold, I don't like the snow and the cold rain, but most of all I don't like the short days. Now that I am training and spending more time running and biking, the short days are even worse. It is 6:19 in the morning and it is pitch black out. I want to get my brick in early this morning so I am home before it gets too late, but I don't like riding in the dark. I'll need to wait a bit longer. It's only going to get worse as we get closer to the solstice so I guess I am going to have to be in the habit of getting up before dawn and getting other things done, so I can use my daylight hours for training. Eventually it will be too cold to train outdoors and then it won't matter. By then I will be desperate for spring to return.
This morning I weighed 154.2!! I know this is not much different than the weight I posted a few days ago, so you may be wondering what the exclamation points are for. The exclamation points are there because I am so pleased with the fact that I am truly into a routine that is producing consistent, predictable results. I got very frustrated with my stops and starts for that first few weeks after the triathlon. Even though I was exercising consistently, my eating was erratic which showed up on the scale. The day my actual weight line hit my goal line and threatened to go over it was the day I decided to get serious about my eating again. That was about a week and a half ago. Ever since that day my weight has been predictably consistent and I have started losing weight again. There are a lot of other good things happening, too, as a result of getting serious about food. I am not thinking about food all the time, anymore. I wake up and eat my breakfast of eggs, veggies, and a banana and then pack the rest of my food for the day to take with me to work. Once I am at work I don't think much about food other than when I glance at the clock and see it is around 11:00am, it's time for my Greek yogurt and berries. My snacks are packed (nuts - a combination of walnuts, almonds and macademia nuts, heavy on the almonds, and an apple), as well as an afternoon meal that generally consists of whatever chicken I cook that week and a vegetable. My last meal of the work day is generally around 3:00 in the afternoon and by then I've consumed about 1600 calories. When I get home from work I eat a light snack consisting of protein (more chicken, most likely) and a complex carb of some sort. The result is I spend very little time and energy thinking about food. I am not having mental wrestling matches, trying to talk myself into eating the right things and not eating the wrong things. Food is just fuel. It fires my engines and gets me through the day.
This plan does not always work, however. Sometimes I get stuck in a meeting that starts before 10 and goes later than noon. If I don't plan correctly and it's one o'clock before I eat my yogurt, the rest of my day is kind of hellish when it comes to food cravings. It doesn't seem to matter that I get caught up and eat what I would normally eat, but just later in the day; my food cravings last until I go to bed that night. The cravings, of course, feel like they are for sugar or something sweet. It's pretty obvious to me that by letting too much time go between meals (6 - 8 hours) I am messing around with my blood chemistry to the point that I have difficulty getting it back on track that day. It's not even that I feel famished at 1:00, I don't even feel very hungry, it's just that I know I need to eat. For the rest of the day, after that late lunch, all I can think about is getting my hands on more food. I don't need to eat every two-three hours as some people suggest, but I do eat my first major snack, if you want to call it that, about 4 hours after breakfast. I eat my late lunch about 4 hours after that. In between I snack on my 2 ounces of nuts (usually I eat most of them at about 10:00 am, but sometimes they are still around and I eat them with my mid-afternoon lunch). It's exceedingly clear to me that when I eat is as important to my success as what I eat. Skipping meals, or pushing them back a few hours, plays all kind of hell with my "will power," which, I am confident, has everything to do with whacky blood chemistry sending all of the wrong messages to my brain.
I want to talk for a couple of minutes about my friend, the scale. I know there are a lot of opinions about whether or not you should weigh yourself every day. I have had people tell me to throw away my scale, others tell me that they can't stay on track without weighing themselves every morning and every night. For me, it works to weigh myself every single day. Sometimes I even weigh myself before I go to bed and try to predict what I will weigh in the morning. The funny thing is, I can just about predict what I will weigh based on what I eat. People (including me) complain about how erratic their weight is, how they will gain two pounds or more in a day, or eight pounds or more in a week. People (including me) sometimes complain that the weight gain (or lack of weight loss) is unpredictable and has nothing to do with what they eat or drink. I can tell you that for me, that simply is not true. What I weigh in the evening before I go to bed or in the morning as soon as I get up, has everything to do with what I ate or drank in the day or two immediately preceeding getting on the scale. If I eat only food I prepared for myself (therefore carefully controlling salt, fat, and other additives), if I eat controlled portions of protein, fruits, veggies and some carbs, if I eat on a schedule, if I don't eat for a few hours before I go to bed, and if I drink plenty of water; I will either stay about the same as the day before or I will lose a few ounces. If any of these things are off, and it could be any one of these things, I could see a weight gain. If I take one of my meals at a restaurant, all of a sudden there is an unknown variable there. I don't know how much butter they put on that piece of fish before they grilled it. I don't have any idea how much salt was in that salad dressing. If everything else is consistent, yet I take a meal at a restaurant and I gain a little weight, I will avoid that meal in the future. I'll make an assumption that there was something I did not know about in that food. I have found a couple of restaurant meals, close to my work, that work well for me. They don't have an impact on my weight. I feel confident when I eat those meals that I am sticking to plan. If it wasn't for the scale, I wouldn't know this. I guess what I am saying is that I like my scale because it tells me how my body is responding to what I am putting in it. I consider it a bad sign if I bloat up and "unexpectedly" gain weight. Something caused that. I want to know what it is. By weighing myself every day, I can isolate the events that caused the changes in weight. Sometimes I forget to drink water, then I will be a little heavier the next day. Sometimes I skip a meal and load all my calories at the end of the day. I'm a little heavier the next day. Sometimes I eat crap. I'm a little heavier the next day. It is amazing to me how consistently my body responds to what I put into it. I need my scale, because it keeps my mind in the game.
There are times, when I am trying to lose weight, that my weight plateaus, even when I do everything right. This is frustrating and I don't really understand how that works or why that happens. I do know that I just need to be patient, though. I know if I consistently do the right thing that the scale will start moving in the right direction again.
I pay attention to my scale and I pay attention to my body. If my scale goes up, I try to figure out why. If my hands swell or my joints hurt, I try to figure out why. I can almost always isolate it to something I ate or water I didn't drink. Our bodies are amazing organisms that respond to the slightest changes in what we put into them. They are maintaining chemical balances in millions of ways, I am sure, one of which is by changing the volume of water it stores in order to keep everything in balance. If I start storing more water, there is a reason. I look at it very simplistically and assume it is because my sodium level has risen and I need more water to balance it out. Maybe it is something else. Maybe my kidneys or liver are excreting some sort of poison as a result of something I ate or drank, and my body has to try to flush it out. I don't know exactly what is going on in there, but I do know that what I eat and drink is reflected, almost immediately, on my scale. Therefore, my scale helps me diagnose what works and doesn't work with regard to my daily diet. I will never throw away my scale. I will always weigh myself daily to keep tabs on what is going on on the inside. It is one of the most important tools in my toolbox.
For now, the sun has come up and I need to run (literally)! Thursday I ate 2,050 calories and 98 grams of protein. Friday I ate 2,046 calories and 116 grams of protein.
Have a great weekend!
This morning I weighed 154.2!! I know this is not much different than the weight I posted a few days ago, so you may be wondering what the exclamation points are for. The exclamation points are there because I am so pleased with the fact that I am truly into a routine that is producing consistent, predictable results. I got very frustrated with my stops and starts for that first few weeks after the triathlon. Even though I was exercising consistently, my eating was erratic which showed up on the scale. The day my actual weight line hit my goal line and threatened to go over it was the day I decided to get serious about my eating again. That was about a week and a half ago. Ever since that day my weight has been predictably consistent and I have started losing weight again. There are a lot of other good things happening, too, as a result of getting serious about food. I am not thinking about food all the time, anymore. I wake up and eat my breakfast of eggs, veggies, and a banana and then pack the rest of my food for the day to take with me to work. Once I am at work I don't think much about food other than when I glance at the clock and see it is around 11:00am, it's time for my Greek yogurt and berries. My snacks are packed (nuts - a combination of walnuts, almonds and macademia nuts, heavy on the almonds, and an apple), as well as an afternoon meal that generally consists of whatever chicken I cook that week and a vegetable. My last meal of the work day is generally around 3:00 in the afternoon and by then I've consumed about 1600 calories. When I get home from work I eat a light snack consisting of protein (more chicken, most likely) and a complex carb of some sort. The result is I spend very little time and energy thinking about food. I am not having mental wrestling matches, trying to talk myself into eating the right things and not eating the wrong things. Food is just fuel. It fires my engines and gets me through the day.
This plan does not always work, however. Sometimes I get stuck in a meeting that starts before 10 and goes later than noon. If I don't plan correctly and it's one o'clock before I eat my yogurt, the rest of my day is kind of hellish when it comes to food cravings. It doesn't seem to matter that I get caught up and eat what I would normally eat, but just later in the day; my food cravings last until I go to bed that night. The cravings, of course, feel like they are for sugar or something sweet. It's pretty obvious to me that by letting too much time go between meals (6 - 8 hours) I am messing around with my blood chemistry to the point that I have difficulty getting it back on track that day. It's not even that I feel famished at 1:00, I don't even feel very hungry, it's just that I know I need to eat. For the rest of the day, after that late lunch, all I can think about is getting my hands on more food. I don't need to eat every two-three hours as some people suggest, but I do eat my first major snack, if you want to call it that, about 4 hours after breakfast. I eat my late lunch about 4 hours after that. In between I snack on my 2 ounces of nuts (usually I eat most of them at about 10:00 am, but sometimes they are still around and I eat them with my mid-afternoon lunch). It's exceedingly clear to me that when I eat is as important to my success as what I eat. Skipping meals, or pushing them back a few hours, plays all kind of hell with my "will power," which, I am confident, has everything to do with whacky blood chemistry sending all of the wrong messages to my brain.
I want to talk for a couple of minutes about my friend, the scale. I know there are a lot of opinions about whether or not you should weigh yourself every day. I have had people tell me to throw away my scale, others tell me that they can't stay on track without weighing themselves every morning and every night. For me, it works to weigh myself every single day. Sometimes I even weigh myself before I go to bed and try to predict what I will weigh in the morning. The funny thing is, I can just about predict what I will weigh based on what I eat. People (including me) complain about how erratic their weight is, how they will gain two pounds or more in a day, or eight pounds or more in a week. People (including me) sometimes complain that the weight gain (or lack of weight loss) is unpredictable and has nothing to do with what they eat or drink. I can tell you that for me, that simply is not true. What I weigh in the evening before I go to bed or in the morning as soon as I get up, has everything to do with what I ate or drank in the day or two immediately preceeding getting on the scale. If I eat only food I prepared for myself (therefore carefully controlling salt, fat, and other additives), if I eat controlled portions of protein, fruits, veggies and some carbs, if I eat on a schedule, if I don't eat for a few hours before I go to bed, and if I drink plenty of water; I will either stay about the same as the day before or I will lose a few ounces. If any of these things are off, and it could be any one of these things, I could see a weight gain. If I take one of my meals at a restaurant, all of a sudden there is an unknown variable there. I don't know how much butter they put on that piece of fish before they grilled it. I don't have any idea how much salt was in that salad dressing. If everything else is consistent, yet I take a meal at a restaurant and I gain a little weight, I will avoid that meal in the future. I'll make an assumption that there was something I did not know about in that food. I have found a couple of restaurant meals, close to my work, that work well for me. They don't have an impact on my weight. I feel confident when I eat those meals that I am sticking to plan. If it wasn't for the scale, I wouldn't know this. I guess what I am saying is that I like my scale because it tells me how my body is responding to what I am putting in it. I consider it a bad sign if I bloat up and "unexpectedly" gain weight. Something caused that. I want to know what it is. By weighing myself every day, I can isolate the events that caused the changes in weight. Sometimes I forget to drink water, then I will be a little heavier the next day. Sometimes I skip a meal and load all my calories at the end of the day. I'm a little heavier the next day. Sometimes I eat crap. I'm a little heavier the next day. It is amazing to me how consistently my body responds to what I put into it. I need my scale, because it keeps my mind in the game.
There are times, when I am trying to lose weight, that my weight plateaus, even when I do everything right. This is frustrating and I don't really understand how that works or why that happens. I do know that I just need to be patient, though. I know if I consistently do the right thing that the scale will start moving in the right direction again.
I pay attention to my scale and I pay attention to my body. If my scale goes up, I try to figure out why. If my hands swell or my joints hurt, I try to figure out why. I can almost always isolate it to something I ate or water I didn't drink. Our bodies are amazing organisms that respond to the slightest changes in what we put into them. They are maintaining chemical balances in millions of ways, I am sure, one of which is by changing the volume of water it stores in order to keep everything in balance. If I start storing more water, there is a reason. I look at it very simplistically and assume it is because my sodium level has risen and I need more water to balance it out. Maybe it is something else. Maybe my kidneys or liver are excreting some sort of poison as a result of something I ate or drank, and my body has to try to flush it out. I don't know exactly what is going on in there, but I do know that what I eat and drink is reflected, almost immediately, on my scale. Therefore, my scale helps me diagnose what works and doesn't work with regard to my daily diet. I will never throw away my scale. I will always weigh myself daily to keep tabs on what is going on on the inside. It is one of the most important tools in my toolbox.
For now, the sun has come up and I need to run (literally)! Thursday I ate 2,050 calories and 98 grams of protein. Friday I ate 2,046 calories and 116 grams of protein.
Have a great weekend!
Thursday, September 19, 2013
9/19/2013: Another Mentee, I hope I Can Help!
Yesterday I was surprised to find out that I have another mentee that is seeking help to reach his fitness and weight loss goals. He is a banker that I have been keeping in touch with and we had lunch together on Tuesday just to touch base. He asked me about my triathlon and I told him about my experience and I also told him about my 2014 and lifetime goals. He was impressed with all three; 1st, that I finished my first triathlon within regulation time; 2nd, that I am planning to do it again and improve my time by 27 minutes; and 3rd, that I have decided to become a competitive triathlete and have a lifetime goal of winning my age group. We talked a lot about my journey over the last 18 months and I showed him my start photo. He was even more impressed.
He started to tell me about how he used to workout a lot and really enjoyed it and how he wanted to lose 20 or so pounds and we talked about strategies to make that happen. I told him that it was my goal to lose 16 pounds by the end of the year. He made a bet with me that he could lose 17 in the same time frame. What the heck? I'll take him on. First, I know I will lose my 16, but if he loses a pound more than me and wins the bet, then that is a win-win. During our lunch, I thought it was all in fun, but Wednesday morning John called me up and told me his start weight (204, he's just shy of 6 feet tall) and he wanted to know how often he could call me and tell me his weight. He is going to make a chart, we talked about exercise, and I recommended that he read, "Younger Next Year." He's going to mark his chart twice a week and he is going to call and check in with me once a week. Later in the day he emailed me to tell me what he had for lunch!! I am excited that I have inspired another person to achieve fitness!! Other than my own good health and well being, inspiring others is one of the greatest rewards that I get out of this journey.
This morning I am headed to work early to prepare for a 9:00am meeting. I will run tonight.
Yesterday's calories: 1,825
Yesterday's protein: 98 grams
This morning's weight: 155.2
For about a week now I have felt much more in control of my eating. As I told Jack Tuesday evening, I am not eating any "unprescribed" foods. I know the exercise is paying off because I am starting to feel more toned, again. It feels great to be back in the groove.
He started to tell me about how he used to workout a lot and really enjoyed it and how he wanted to lose 20 or so pounds and we talked about strategies to make that happen. I told him that it was my goal to lose 16 pounds by the end of the year. He made a bet with me that he could lose 17 in the same time frame. What the heck? I'll take him on. First, I know I will lose my 16, but if he loses a pound more than me and wins the bet, then that is a win-win. During our lunch, I thought it was all in fun, but Wednesday morning John called me up and told me his start weight (204, he's just shy of 6 feet tall) and he wanted to know how often he could call me and tell me his weight. He is going to make a chart, we talked about exercise, and I recommended that he read, "Younger Next Year." He's going to mark his chart twice a week and he is going to call and check in with me once a week. Later in the day he emailed me to tell me what he had for lunch!! I am excited that I have inspired another person to achieve fitness!! Other than my own good health and well being, inspiring others is one of the greatest rewards that I get out of this journey.
This morning I am headed to work early to prepare for a 9:00am meeting. I will run tonight.
Yesterday's calories: 1,825
Yesterday's protein: 98 grams
This morning's weight: 155.2
For about a week now I have felt much more in control of my eating. As I told Jack Tuesday evening, I am not eating any "unprescribed" foods. I know the exercise is paying off because I am starting to feel more toned, again. It feels great to be back in the groove.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
9/18/13: Just Another Day...
Today is just another day, except for the fact that the Royals blew it last night after their rookie pitcher gave them an incredible almost 6 innings. We stayed until the brutal end of the game so I didn't get to bed until almost 11pm, almost 2 hours past my bedtime!! Getting up this morning to run was rough, so I slept in a little and just put in 4 miles; enough to say I ran, but I didn't set a particularly fast pace nor did I go particularly far. I just got out and put in some miles. Some days that will be good enough.
I haven't updated my blog on calories and protein for a couple of days, so here are the facts:
Monday - calories 1,907; protein 102 grams
Tuesday - calories1,798; protein 107 grams
This morning's weight: 155.4 - I hope to be in the 140s by mid-October.
I'm having trouble sleeping, work has been on my mind a lot lately. I don't see that changing anytime soon. Such is life.
Until tomorrow...
I haven't updated my blog on calories and protein for a couple of days, so here are the facts:
Monday - calories 1,907; protein 102 grams
Tuesday - calories1,798; protein 107 grams
This morning's weight: 155.4 - I hope to be in the 140s by mid-October.
I'm having trouble sleeping, work has been on my mind a lot lately. I don't see that changing anytime soon. Such is life.
Until tomorrow...
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