Shake What Ya Mama Gave You

Goals

2012-01-25T09:45:00.000-05:00

So I've set up this challenge for myself, which is a means to an end, but I've been thinking more about what I want that end to be. Not that this ever ends, per se, because ideally the steps I take toward healthy living will go on and on.

But there are a few goals in my head:

1) Lose weight. I am uncomfortable with my body right now. I'm uncomfortable in my clothes. I hate it. I put a goal down on SparkPeople to lose 37 pounds (to land on a round number) by my birthday on October 10. This is assuming I'm not pregnant by then. (Jason and I haven't really made it a secret that we're trying.) I'll reassess if a baby comes into the picture.

2) Wear a size 10. I would like to be solidly into normal women's clothes again. I've been teetering on the edge of plus size for awhile, and there are a few styles that I just can't wear in regular clothes. So I don't wear them. But I would like to be able to shop and not think about it. I don't need to be a size 0 or 2 or even a 6. 10 would be lovely.

3) Be able to hike without feeling like I'm going to die. I understand that hiking is hard and that climbing mountains is no small feat. I don't need to run up the mountain (like our crazy friend, the trail runner), but I would like to be able to complete a mountain hike in the book time rather than stop so much, and feel like my heart is going to explode out of my chest every 10 feet. I still have mixed feelings about hiking. However, Jason LOVES it and it would be awesome to hike a mountain with him next summer and not feel like the fattest, most out-of-shape girl on the mountain.

I'm not actually sure if all of the goals are feasible and will work out in the end. The weight and size I'm shooting for are numbers that I haven't seen in a long, long time. I think the hiking goal is doable. I'm mixing up my workouts right now, getting in both strength training and cardio, and I hope that I can change my body composition, increase my metabolism, and finally start losing weight again.

2 Days In and It's All Good

2012-01-24T13:37:00.002-05:00

I suppose I technically should have started this whole challenge thing on Sunday, since that's the beginning of the week in most people's minds.

Even though it's the sabbath for Christians, which is the 7th day, when God rested. Right? So really, starting yesterday was right on.

Anyway, last week was not too bad, other than the anadama bread I made over the weekend. And the junk I ate at a hockey game on Friday night. But check out these strides I'm making:

1) I got chicken tenders, fries and a Diet Pepsi at the game. I am not a Diet Pepsi fan, but it was the only diet option, so I figured I would get it. This is after not drinking ANY Diet Coke all week. (Proud of me? I am.) Well, Diet Pepsi is revolting. I've always thought so, but it's even worse when my taste buds aren't used to diet soda in general. So I took 2 sips, then passed it over to Jason. I ate the 3 teeny tiny chicken tenders, but didn't finish my fries. Jason polished those off as well.

2) Speaking of diet soda, I had some Diet Coke with lime on Saturday, which I declared my Diet Coke Day of the Week. Meh. It was better than the Diet Pepsi, but not my favorite. How can my attitude toward Diet Coke have shifted so drastically in just one week? Over the holidays I was planning our excursions around opportunities to stop somewhere and get a Diet Coke.

3) We ran out of cornmeal and I substituted almond meal in the anadama bread. Yum! I think it actually helped the bread bake up much lighter than usual. I'm going to dedicate some time in the coming months to some baking experimentation. My ultimate goal is to come up with something grain-free (or at least gluten-free) that I can make in my bread machine.

This week is off to a good start. I'm keeping the carbs low. We went out for a Restaurant Week meal last night (when else can you go to Ruth's Chris and not pay $45 for a steak?), so I did have dessert (an adorable chocolate mousse in a chocolate cup with berries and cream). Even so, my carbs for the day were still well under 100 grams.

After arguing with myself for about 10 minutes yesterday morning, I managed to pull myself out of bed and get to the strength training class. I think I need to bring my own yoga mat. The Y's mats are pretty foul and I actually abstained from most of the face-down stretching at the end of the hour because I caught a definite odor coming off of the mat I was using.

Then I went to Masters swimming this morning. I am slow. No, let me emphasize, I am SLOOOOOW. When I first got there, I asked the coach which lane I should be in, telling her I hadn't been in the pool since the last time she saw me sometime in November. I got knocked down a lane AND I was totally getting beat by the people in that lane. But one of my swimming buddies said she knows I'll be back up to speed in no time. I appreciate the encouragement.

Also, it was really sweet because everyone was happy to see me. I got a lot of excited greetings this morning and everyone asked where I had been. It's nice to be missed.

Now, I am sore. But it's a good pain.

Someday This Will Begin, I Swear

2012-01-17T15:49:00.002-05:00

The best laid plans. Am I right?

Sunday night was...not so fun. I don't know if I had a brief flu bug, or food poisoning, but my body did not want anything in it, thank you very much, including water. By yesterday morning, I was able to drink some ginger ale and eat some Saltines, which Jason went out and got for me, lovely man. Then I had some soup for dinner. Yay soup.

This morning I felt much better, but still not super. My stomach has been a little wonky all day, but better than it was.

So I missed the strength training class yesterday morning and I missed Masters swimming this morning. I'm hoping to get to the strength training class tomorrow morning. But I think I'm going to call this week a wash and start my CHALLENGE! over next week.

That doesn't mean I'm giving myself license to fall apart, though. My eating has been fantastic today. It helps that I don't really want to eat that much. What I have eaten has been low-carb.

CHALLENGE

2012-01-12T10:49:00.002-05:00

I am apparently useless without an official challenge. I'm sure there are some New Years challenges I could still jump into, but I'm going to set a challenge for myself. So here we go with:

Kelly's 8-Week Challenge!

(Sound official enough?)

Timeline: January 15, 2012 to March 10, 2012

Diet: Low-carb/Paleo
- No grains. I've realized I have some sort of wheat sensitivity, but have let other grains (mainly corn) creep in more often than I like. Got to cut it out!
- Little bit of dairy. I like cheese and milk, but it's not going to be the staple of my low-carb snacks like it has been in the past.
- Main diet will be protein and non-starchy vegetables, a little bit of fruit, healthy fats.
- One Diet Coke per week. I know I should cut them out altogether, and hopefully by the end of the 8 weeks that won't seem so insurmountable, but right now I am a big-time Diet Coke addict once again. So I'm allowing one per week in the beginning and I'll see how my cravings go.

Exercise: 4 workouts per week in the beginning.
- At least 2 strength training classes per week
- At least 2 cardio workouts per week

There is a bit of a caveat to the 8 weeks, which is that Jason and I are going on a trip at the end of the month that we've been planning for several months and which will probably involve some food splurging. Though the last time we went, we were crazy active the entire time and honestly did not eat too unhealthily, conch fritters aside. Anyway, my plan for that week is to eat as well as I can, but not be obsessive about it. If I go too far off the rails, I'll add another week to the challenge.

I'm going to start my detox on Saturday, the 14th, since it's a long weekend and I don't really want to go through carb/caffeine withdrawal at work.

Jason should enjoy that.

Also, I'm supposed to drive some teenage girls to a dance Saturday night and by then I suspect I'll really be jonesing for a Diet Coke. I predict that will be super fun.

Foiled!

2012-01-05T17:19:00.000-05:00

The fact that my alarm keeps not going off is not helping my workout efforts. It happened last Saturday as well.

Either that, or I am an even deeper sleeper than I originally thought and am fully capable of picking up my phone when the alarm goes off and hitting the "Dismiss" button without waking up in the slightest. It's possible.

Anyway, no cardio this morning. Drat. However, Friday morning strength training class tomorrow!

Eating is going well today:

Breakfast: Eggs
Lunch: Leftover chicken soup
Snack: Larabar
Dinner: Crock pot meatballs (I'll post the recipe and the source tomorrow if they turn out well)

I'm trying to be more diligent about cooking again. I got busy and lazy (a great combination!) and stopped cooking as much. I'm making a concerted effort to plan our meals, which includes remembering to get something out to thaw at least 1 day before I actually want to prepare it. Amazing!

Day the Second

2012-01-04T13:37:00.002-05:00

Confession 1: I ate some chocolate dipped peanuts last night, which is definitely NOT low-carb. It's not even low-fat. It's just better for me all around if I don't have that stuff in the house. Jason has a whole pile of candies on the coffee table in the family room from Christmas, including the M&Ms I gave him out of my stocking because I didn't want the temptation (I did, however, hold onto the Ghiradelli squares to savor one at a time at some future dates. I'm not that generous).

I'm not really beating myself up about it. Overall, yesterday was a good day, and compared to the weeks leading up to it, it was downright stellar.

Confession 2: I didn't make it to the strength training class this morning. I was tired and it was 10 degrees outside when I woke up. Again, not freaking out. I figure I'm still adjusting to the time change from Utah and I felt tired enough that I knew it would be best to just stay in bed. So I did.

Tomorrow, however, I need to get back into it for reals. Tomorrow I'll do some cardio. Probably elliptical, since the idea of getting in a pool right now isn't super appealing. I need to work back up to this, but my plan is that in a couple of weeks, when I get on the elliptical, it will only be to do HIIT workouts.

Food for today:
Breakfast: Eggs
Lunch: Burrito belly from the Mexican place down the street
Afternoon snack: dry roasted almonds or Larabar (haven't decided yet)
Dinner: Homemade chicken soup experiment (I threw a bunch of stuff into the crock pot and I'm hoping it tastes good. Chicken breasts, Aidell's chicken and apple sausage, onions, garlic, diced tomatoes, tarragon, Kosher salt, chicken broth. In related news, I need to get to the store and buy vegetables, pronto.)

Day 1 (for the Millonth Time)

2012-01-03T16:14:00.001-05:00

Here I am back at Day 1 of living healthy. We got into town last night and I ate some crab rangoon as my last hurrah of eating crap for awhile.

And they were gooooood!

Today has been so-so. I had some nice eggs for breakfast, then some dry roasted almonds for a morning snack. Apparently stuffing my face for days on end means that my normal breakfast won't keep me full until lunch. I'll get back to normal eventually.

For lunch I had planned on a salad, but my normal salad place is closed for the holidays until tomorrow. Plus, I ran some lunch errands and it is COLD outside. So I got some soup from Au Bon Pain. I know they have salads, but as I already mentioned, COLD. I recorded it dutifully on SparkPeople and it actually wasn't too bad.

Tonight for dinner I'm planning on making us salmon and roasted brussels sprouts. I started throwing together a chicken avocado soup this morning in the crock pot (since it's supposed to be 9!!! degrees tonight), but I waited too long to use the avocados and they were moldy. I didn't really have a good substitute, so the soup got nixed.

I have put everything into SparkPeople and I'm at 73 net carbs for the day. Not too shabby, considering today's menu wasn't aggressively low carb.

Tomorrow morning I'm hitting my first strength training class of the new year. My fingers are crossed that it won't be too packed to move.

Resolutions

2011-12-31T12:45:00.003-05:00

Jason and I are jumping on the resolution bandwagon (like everyone else in the country). We need to get back to healthy living

Frankly, this is a perfect time to do it. We are both so saturated with junk food right now (especially sweet stuff) that it will be a relief to get back to some nice chicken and broccoli. I swear, I haven't been hungry in a week! We have been with Jason's family in Utah, where the snacks flow like water, especially the sugar-laden kind.

My sister-in-law and I are planning a bunch of appetizers for New Years Eve tonight, and we're going heavy on the savory. There is a bunch of candy in my stocking, and peanut brittle, toffee and cookies on the dining room table, and I am not enticed by them AT ALL. Jason and I talked a couple nights ago about how bloated we feel. Blurgh, carb bloat!

January 3 is when my New Years resolutions will begin. I'll be back at work and back to my regular routine. Also, Jason and I have a trip planned for the end of January during which I will be mostly wearing a swimsuit. I don't expect miracles and I know I won't be losing 10 pounds by then, but I can at least lose the bloat and feel a little better about myself by then.

Healthy Eating:

- We're cutting the carbs. Again. I feel the best when my diet is carb-light.

- Protein

- Vegetables (with maybe a small sweet potato once a week. I know I need to limit the starchy vegetables)

- Some fruit

- Some dairy. Ideally I would like to shoot for eating Paleo, but I REALLY like dairy. We'll see how it goes. If I'm still in my endless plateau in a month, I'll try cutting out dairy and see if that helps.

Exercise:

- 2 strength training classes per week. I went to the gym with my mother-in-law this week and got my a** handed to me by her trainer. It's amazing how weak I've become after only 2 months away from the gym. I know I need to make strength training an integral part of my fitness plan in order to see any results.

- 2 swims per week. I'll be doing Masters again, and then will have one additional coached workout to do.

- 1 optional cardio day (eventually). I'll start out the first couple of weeks with the 4 workouts above, then gradually work in a 5th. I don't want to strain anything by starting out too quickly (which has happened before and is a surefire way to totally bum me out). I'll walk on the path near my house, swim, or maybe do some HIIT on the elliptical.

Jason plans to get back to running, though I don't know if he's really thought through the specifics. At least I know he'll be eating well at home.

So that's the plan for the New Year. Work is a smidge less insane now than it has been for the past couple of months, so I think my plan is doable.

Happy New Year!

Sick of Being Sick

2011-11-20T04:05:00.000-05:00

Jason and I are in Vermont. It's 3:49 am and I have been awake since 1:15 am. There are a couple of reasons.

One is some family drama that has been swirling around in my head and preventing me from getting a solid night's sleep for almost 2 weeks now. No fun when work is also busy and I need to be able to focus. Last week when Jason and I were out running errands one night I actually took off from a stop straight into the intersection when the green arrow came on, but my light was still red. Thank goodness the drivers who were turning left and would have been completely justified in running into me were paying attention.

I'm sure that wasn't related to sleep deprivation AT ALL.

Needless to say, after we ran our errand, Jason drove home. I think he could tell it really shook me up because he's gone pretty easy on the teasing about it.

The other reason I'm up is because despite taking my prescription meds, today's migraine wouldn't go away. I'm out of the prescription drugs, so I popped a couple excedrin. The headache is waning a little, but now I'm buzzing from the caffeine.

Basically I'm a hot mess.

The migraine thing had been a huge issue lately. I think it's due to my overall stress level, but also to my lack of attention to my diet. Even though I've come to the conclusion that wheat seems to be a migraine trigger for me, I've kept on merrily eating wheat in some form pretty much every day. And I've been getting migraines every couple of days.

Also, my jeans continue to get tighter.

This needs to stop.

Right now, at 4:03 in the morning, I'm not feeling strong-willed enough to make powerful, enthusiastic declarations, but I do know that I need to make some changes and that I'm just really tired of feeling semi-ill most of the time.

The Road to Hell

2011-11-04T13:14:00.002-04:00

I swear, I really do have the best intentions.

Last week was Week 1 of the new challenge and I did it! 3 swims and 1 strength training class. And if the pain I felt on Sunday tells me anything, this strength training class is going to shape my body up.

This week I swam Monday, but had a meeting at 7:30 AM (so wrong!) on Tuesday morning, so Masters was out. I knew I wouldn't get home Tuesday night until 10:30 or so, and thus no swim on Wednesday. But I could totally still meet my goal. Swim Thursday and Saturday, and take the Friday morning strength class. No problem.

Only, then on Tuesday my throat started getting scratchy. By Wednesday my left nostril had completely closed up and I felt terrible. I even ditched the Young Womens activity on Wednesday both because I felt so awful and because I didn't want to get anyone else sick.

Really, body? Didn't we just have a cold?

I think my problem was that I had a cold a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't take any time off because work was too busy. Then we had company. So I soldiered on and finally collapsed in a voiceless, headachey heap a couple Sundays ago.

Of course, Monday, I was right back at work. I don't think I let myself heal. So I'm trying to take care of myself this time around. I brought a bunch of work home on Wednesday night and stayed home yesterday. I'm at work today, but it's not nearly as crazed as it was a couple of weeks ago so I'm taking things pretty easy. I'm using antibacterial gel all the time.

But the challenge is a no go this week. I hate to do this, but next week will have to be Week 2.

Note To Self

2011-10-27T13:30:00.001-04:00

Self,

Crap food gives you migraines. Stop eating it. Otherwise you wind up looking like a lame-o when you crawl out of the pool after only 25 minutes of swimming because you feel like you're going to throw up.

Me

Let's Try This Again

2011-10-24T15:57:00.003-04:00

I'm going to do a challenge. For real. Since I've recorded several successfully-completed challenges on here before, we all know I can do them. For a myriad of reasons, this one just won't stick.

Until now.

(Is that ominous enough?)

For the next 8 weeks (through week ending December 17) I will swim 3 times and take 1 strength training class per week. After that come the holidays and while I fully intend to get in some workouts, I probably won't meet any challenge goals for a couple of weeks there at the end of December.

I'm also going to take the suggestion of one of my SparkPeople swimming buddies and reward myself with one dollar per mile of swimming. My reward will be a swimp3. I've read rave reviews about them and actually ran into a girl at the Y who was using one and took the opportunity to pick her brain about it. She LOVES it.

So this morning, I swam. That's part 1 of the challenge.

I swam 1.21 miles. That's $1.21 into the Swimp3 Fund!

Oh, Hai

2011-10-16T11:15:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting at home feeling sorry for myself so, hey, why not update the blog?

I'm missing all the fun today because I'm sick. Seriously, my body picks the most inopportune times to quit on me. Today is the 250th anniversary of the church in Cambridge where Jason and I sing (and where we got married). There was a big celebratory choral service this morning, which I had already figured I couldn't sing at since I haven't had a voice since early Friday morning, but which I planned to attend. Only I woke up at 7 AM, got out of bed, went to bathroom, and came right back to bed. I was coughing, stuffy, head-achey, with a bonus of a stomach ache that made me feel really crappy if I stood up for more than a couple minutes.

Also, Jason's brother had a conference in Boston this past week and he came down to Providence to spend the weekend with us. He also used to sing at Christ Church, so he and Jason are both up there, with plans to get together with some of our Boston friends this afternoon.

Boo! As I just posted to a friend on Facebook, my body couldn't have given out NEXT week? There's no 250th anniversary celebration and brother-in-law in town NEXT week.

I did manage to pull it together enough to go on a long drive with Jason and his brother down to the shore yesterday, and we made a nerdy pilgrimage to Quonochontaug, Rhode Island, where Fox Mulder's family on X-Files apparently had a vacation home.

(Nerd sidenote: Now that I live in New England, I realize how patently absurd it was that Mulder's family lived on Martha's Vineyard (which is an island, known for having vacation homes) and had a vacation home in Quonochontaug (an obscure community in Rhode Island). Also, it took Mulder 3 or 4 hours to drive from DC to Martha's Vineyard, which is about 500 miles away and, again, an island.)

Quonochontaug was actually amazingly beautiful. So beautiful that Jason started mulling over ways to do his lab work from home if we bought the amazing 4.25 million dollar home on the beach that we saw for sale because it's way too far away to commute to Providence every day. And, you know, a house like that is totally within our price range.

Last night we went to the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular at the zoo, which truly is spectacular. This is our 3rd year and I'm continually wowed by the details of the pumpkins.

The fun part for me was that in between the drive and the pumpkins, my sinus headache morphed into a raging migraine and I had to take a migraine pill and lay down for a couple hours. Lame. I swear, Jason's family really and truly must think I'm some delicate consumptive Victorian woman by now because I always seem to get sick when we're with them.

If you've managed to read this far, this post actually does have a tie in with the whole health and wellness point of this blog. First of all, I have not been eating well, I have not been working out and I have not been taking good care of myself for the past few weeks. I haven't been sick since I got the flu in the Spring (March, maybe?). I started swimming with the Masters group in April or May and since then have been pretty diligent with staying active and eating well.

Also, I've realized that I don't get migraines when I keep my carbs low.

But as soon as I slip up, I become susceptible and here I sit, pitifully coughing and sniffling and just feeling all around yucky. Also, over the last 2 weeks, I've been popping migraine pills like candy. This is after I managed to store up a fairly good supply because I kept filling the prescriptions, but not needing the pills. I took my last one this morning. Because this morning I felt another migraine coming on.

I feel extremely fortunate that I've found a medication that actually helps my migraines, since I know a lot of people either need a much higher dose, or don't get any relief from pills, but I would much, much rather not take them at all.

Despite my good intentions of starting a new challenge, I didn't follow through this time. In the past few weeks, I went out of town twice - once for business, once for pleasure. When I was home, I needed to catch up on work, so I got out of bed early, not to go to the gym, but to get to work. And I stayed at work late to finish. Wednesday I had a slight sore throat, Thursday it was getting worse, on Friday I answered the phone and my boss said, "You sound like s**t."

Work has been busy all summer and I managed not to get sick. I'm convinced it's because I was taking good care of my body outside of work. OK, so I wasn't losing weight, but I was healthy!

As soon as this cold thing is over, I am back to the gym. I'm going to restart my challenge again and this time I will do it! I'll keep you all posted.

Crazy Times

2011-09-29T11:36:00.005-04:00

I've been a little busy. I've been coming off a little crazed in the emails I dash off quickly to friends and family members, and in my infrequent posts on the swimming list I visit. I have just been extremely busy at work. I work all day and when I get home at night, I really don't want to do much more than veg out in front of the TV. For the last couple of weeks, I just haven't wanted to get up in the morning to work out.

Also, I was in Baltimore at a conference on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, which means the work that I needed to get done wasn't getting done. I meant to do more work in the evenings than I did, but it's amazing how 8 hours of seminars can sap your energy.

We have a new associate starting on Monday, and my hope is that things will get a little more under control. Right now, both my boss and I are working from crisis to crisis, and letting a lot of other things slide. I finally sent off 2 leases to a client this morning that I promised her 2 weeks ago. Whoops. Every day I come into work with a plan in my head about what I'm going to get done that day, and every day my plan gets sidelined by what needs to get done RIGHT NOW.

My boss is out of the office today for Rosh Hashana and I am thrilled to report that I'm actually catching up a little bit. Maybe by the end of the day my desk will look a little bit less like an explosion of unorganized papers.

What this all means is that my latest challenge has gone completely out the window. I ate like crap while I was in Baltimore, and I felt it. I was lethargic and also really, really bloated. Bleh.

So I'm starting the challenge over as of Monday. 3 swims + 1 strength training class per week.

Also, I'm getting my eating back on track. Actually, I started that (kind of) yesterday. I ate well all day, but then we went to the Texas Roadhouse and I had some rolls. Because they are filled with crack.

Anyway, my goal is to eat healthy, whole foods, like I know I can. I actually already feel better and much less bloated. Today's breakfast was eggs. Today's lunch will be a salad and a few ounces of leftover steak. Tonight's dinner will be chicken on the grill and green beans from the farm share.

Can I Have A Redo?

2011-09-21T12:53:00.004-04:00

Week 1, and I did not, in fact, make it to Chisel!. (I kind of love that the class name includes the exclamation point)

But I have excuses. Yesterday was a really loooong day. Masters was at 6:30, which means I got up at 6. Then I got to work and hit the ground running, because that's the only way work is operating these days, driving to two different meetings and picking up things from client offices. Which means nothing got done that was actually sitting on my desk to get done. Pushed back another day. Sorry, clients!

Then we had Evensong rehearsal up in Cambridge from 7:15-9:15. Then I drove home and we finally made it home by about 10:45. You can ask Jason, I was exhausted and didn't even want to talk. At all. I get in those moods sometimes when I've been *ON* all day. I just - don't talk to me. It comes out harsh, I know, and I feel bad that Jason bears the brunt sometimes of this side of me, but I reach my saturation point and then I'm done.

Then I had to unwind a little by reading The Oatmeal. Totally necessary!

Today we have Very Important Meetings and other things at work, and I was actually at my desk by 7:55 AM. I could have never been in that early if I had gone to a 6:30-7:30 class. So here I am, taking the few minutes I have to scarf down lunch today to tell you all my excuses.

I have a back-up plan, though. It's called strength training class on Friday morning. If all goes as planned, that shouldn't be a problem. Friday! It's on!

Awkward

2011-09-20T13:35:00.002-04:00

I had kind of an awkward moment in Masters swimming this morning. We did a ton of drills, focusing on our stroke. At the end of one set, the coach told me I looked good. Nice!

I've really been working on my stroke for the past several months, and have taken all of the constructive criticism I received from the coach to heart. Now my elbows are more bent, my arms go into the water wider, I concentrate on lengthening my arm at the end of each stroke before I pull down, and I no longer let my left arm drift toward the bottom of the pool when I breathe on the right. I didn't even realize I did that last one until our coach showed me a video of me swimming. Every time I breathe now, I consciously think about holding that left arm out straight. Hopefully, eventually it will become so ingrained that I won't have to think about it so much.

Today there were only two of us in my lane, so we were swimming together. I'll call the other person "B". She is the woman I wrote about before who didn't seem thrilled that I got moved up a lane, but who seems to have accepted me now that I've shown I can keep up.

At the end of the next set, the coach stopped us and told B to synchronize her stroke with mine. B is a fast swimmer, and part of that is due to her rapidly cycling arms. The coach said B needs to slow her arms down and be more efficient like me.

Awkward, right?

I kind of grinned sheepishly at B, and she and I took off on our next set. I realized that when B's arms slowed down, so did she, and I had to slow way down and wait for her so that she could stay parallel to me. The coach had us do that several more times throughout the workout, and I could tell B was not thrilled. She was nice about it, but it's never fun to be told you're doing it wrong, and, oh yeah, that person swimming next to you is doing it right, so do it like her.

Hopefully this won't mar the friendliness that B and I have now.

On the upside, though, I'm swimming really well lately. The last few workouts I've done, I've felt like everything was really coming together. I'm not kicking too hard, my stroke is more efficient, I'm breathing fewer times - everything is flowing nicely.

Next Challenge

2011-09-18T18:02:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking about my next challenge and I've decided that it's really time for me to buckle down and add strength training back into my routine. But I'm going to do it in a fun way, not drag myself to the gym and do 30-45 minutes on the weight machines, which is kind of the most boring thing ever.

Probably half of the people in my Masters swim group take a class called "Chisel!" at the Y on Wednesday mornings. Everyone raves about it. I figure this will be a good way to get in strength AND I already have buddies there from swimming. The teacher does two other strength training classes on Monday and Friday, so maybe I'll eventually throw one of those on my plate too, but for now I'm just going to shoot for the Wednesday class and see how that goes.

I'm going to keep up with my swimming though. Jason has been on a surfing movie kick lately and I am in awe of the athleticism of the men (and the few women) who surf these giant waves. I sit through most of the movies with my jaw on the ground. The latest one we watched (and the best, in my opinion) was Riding Giants.

Watching these amazing athletes inspires me, not to take up surfing, but to get out there and DO IT! Like a Nike commercial. My sport is swimming and I've been getting better over the past 6 months, but I need to keep improving and working on my personal athletic skills.

I think strength training will only help my swimming efforts. I also hope that adding strength training will be the extra kick my body needs to start leaning out some. I'm so tired of being this size. I've whined on here enough about it, so I won't say anything more than this: you know what is really the most frustrating about being the size I am? I know I would be more aerodynamic and could get my times lower if I lost some weight. Right now, that is where a big part of my frustration lies. I want to be faster in the pool and losing weight will help.

So starting tomorrow (Monday), I'm going to aim for 3 swimming workouts and 1 strength training working per week. This challenge will run for 8 weeks, through the 2nd week of November (ending November 12th). This Wednesday I'll be at Chisel! and I'm excited!

Swim Across America 9/10/11

2011-09-13T12:40:00.005-04:00

Saturday I swam my first open water swim with Swim Across America! I raised $920 for cancer research at Women and Infants Hospital right here in Providence. At the end of last week, I was getting a little nervous. Hurricane Katia was creating big swells on the Rhode Island beaches, and rumors of rip tides were floating around.

However, the water on Saturday morning couldn't have been better:

Not only did the swells really die down, but unbeknownst to me, the beach at Wheeler State Beach is protected by a breakwater because it's also the same area where the ferries head out to Block Island and Martha's Vineyard. So the water was actually pretty smooth - much smoother than any of my practice swims.

Here's the route for the swim (we mile swimmers made the loop twice)I signed in and got my yellow cap and my number

Plus, a sweet tat (which is still secured firmly on my shoulder, despite several showers and a workout swim this morning)

I ran into my Masters coach and introduced her to Jason, but she was a little distracted because she had been assigned to watch over Clara Walker, the 86 year-old former Olympian. Clara is a native Rhode Islander who swam in the 1948 London Olympics. Amazing! She swam a half mile on Saturday. Clara Walker is my new hero!

After I registered there wasn't much to do besides wait.I also snagged a pineapple Chobani for Jason, since he didn't have the chance to eat before we left, and they had food for the swimmers.

Jason snapped this picture while I was dutifully listening to the announcements and safety instructions.Right after the announcements, I bumped into a woman from my Masters group. We wound up having a mutual-appreciation conversation (I complimented her speed, she complimented my kick) and she made me feel much less nervous about the upcoming swim. It's always nice to have a buddy. She and I lined up together and ran into the water together, then she took off (because she's super fast).

The 1-mile start (the half-mile swimmers had pink caps and started about 10 minutes after us).After the 1st loop, I thought, "I have to do that again?! Maybe I should have done the 1/2 mile...", but then the 2nd loop flew by and before I knew it, I was finished.

Done!I met both of my goals, which were, (1) Finish, and (2) Don't be last.

About 30 seconds in, I realized I hadn't asked Jason to time me, and I had forgotten my waterproof watch. Darn it! However, Jason said we started at exactly 9:00 and he's pretty sure I came out of the water at 9:29 almost exactly. So I swam the open-water mile in 29 minutes, which I'm very pleased with, considering it's only about 10 seconds off my fastest pool time.

Jason and I spent the rest of the day at the beach. We stayed at Wheeler for awhile, then headed over to Scarborough, where the lack of breakwater meant we had some fun waves to jump. We also both got completely fried. Note to self: Jason hates touching sunscreen and will thus not apply it evenly, or even completely, on my back. My back is currently 3 different colors of tan.

All in all, the swim was fun and I'm glad I challenged myself. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of events I can swim next season.

Week Off

2011-09-06T14:53:00.003-04:00

I just took an inadvertent week off of swimming, which doesn't fit into my swim challenge plan at all, but I think I needed it. Last Monday I didn't want to swim. Fine. 5 more days left to get in my 4 swims.

Tuesday I was fighting off the last remnants of a Monday-evening migraine. I'm not sure where that come from, though I think it might have been from the crazy pressure changes from Hurricane Irene. So no Masters swimming.

For the rest of the week, I just didn't feel like getting up and going to the pool. We have been so busy at work, and every morning I just wanted to sleep a little longer. By the time I got to Thursday morning, I wasn't even trying to get to the pool and officially decided I was taking a week off.

Yesterday, I thought about swimming, but wound up bumming around with Jason in the morning, then heading to Arcadia State Park, or as I like to call it, the most enigmatic park in the world. I don't think Rhode Island actually wants anyone to use the park. Heaven knows there are no rangers, or welcome centers, or helpful signs, or maps. There are 4 or 5 roads with signs labeled Arcadia, and I think we found the main park area, but I can't really be sure.

After driving around on dirt roads for an hour or so, we finally just parked, and started walking on a trail. Either it would take us somewhere interesting, or we would just turn around. About 45 minutes in, we ran into an older couple taking a snack break. We asked them if they were familiar with Arcadia and they produced a book and a big map of the park, with actual marked trails. We discovered that we could summit mighty Mt. Tom (at 430 feet. I love that they call it "Mt." Tom. Kind of adorable, really), then loop back on a dirt road to where we parked. We took note of the book they had, for future reference, happily ate a few of their homegrown cherry tomatoes, and continued on our way.

So this morning I finally made it back to the pool for Masters swimming. I have determined that a week off was exactly what I needed. I felt coordinated and sleek in the water, and my times were pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. Also, my breathing is more efficient - meaning I'm breathing less frequently, which adds to the whole streamlined effect. It felt great to be back in the water, and I'm actually looking forward to going tomorrow morning.

Meeting with the Nutritionist, Part 2

2011-08-31T10:00:00.003-04:00

When last I wrote, we (the nutritionist and I) had just dealt with breakfast and she had explained that I needed to add carbs to breakfast and cut back on the fat and protein, and also that fat and protein will keep me energized and satiated longer than carbs. Ooookay.

On to lunch! As I mentioned, my lunch is usually a big salad with some sort of protein either on top or on the side, with a bit of gorgonzola or feta cheese, and some sunflower or pumpkin seeds for interest. The nutritionist wants me to halve the amount of cheese and seeds. So rather than 1-2 T of cheese, I should have 1/2-1 T of cheese, and rather than 1/2 an ounce of seeds, I should have a 1/4 ounce.

Is anyone else noticing that these are minuscule amounts? When I total up my salads in SparkPeople, they come out to about 400-450 calories. Nutritionist wants them more like 350.

Also, she says, eat more fruit! Fruit is apparently my key to success.

She glided over my afternoon snack, nodding with approval, and then hit dinner. Basically, my dinners look good. Protein and half a plate of veggies are just fine.

The summation of our meeting is that I generally eat pretty healthy. She told me about people who have come in to see her who know nothing about nutrition, but she acknowledged that I have a pretty good knowledge base (though I know she thinks my views on carbs and fat are completely out of whack).

But here's the part where I felt kind of insulted. I asked her, "OK, so I'm eating 1500-1800 calories per day now. What would you suggest my totals be?" (in my head: "if we're going with the 'it's all about the calories' theory") And she said, no lie, "Well, you're not eating 1500-1800 calories per day. These [gesturing to my logs] aren't accurate in some way and you're taking in more calories. Because if you were really eating 1500-1800 calories per day and working out as much as you say you are, you would be losing weight."

She said this all perfectly nicely, but looking back on it now, I'm kind of incensed. So despite logging my calories for, literally, years, and despite having previously lost 40 pounds by logging and tracking food and exercise, I'm apparently just fooling myself. Or I'm lying.

She also noted that my fat intake is about 50% of my total calories. Remember that whole fat is more satiating thing? Lots of people who limit their carbs have fat intake between 70-90% of their calories. Anyway, she asked me "how I feel" about that. How do I feel about it? I said, "Just fine." This was toward the end of the appointment, and so I said, "I just don't believe dietary fat is as bad as it has been made out to be. I don't eat trans fats, I eat good fats, and I don't realy think saturated fat is that bad."

I didn't say this, but the red meat and the dark meat in chicken and all those things that are considered bad because of saturated fat? Those are actually also good sources of the UNsaturated fats that we're being told is good for us. I am becoming more and more convinced that a diet of WHOLE FOODS is the way to go. Limit processing and eat food as close to its natural state as possible.

So the take-away is that I eat healthy right now, but I'm eating too much, and I'm eating too much fat, so I have to shave 50-100 calories here and there. Also, I need to eat more fruits and vegetables. That was key.

I immediately called Jason to tell him that I don't eat enough fruits and vegetables. He was quiet for a second and then asked, "How does she expect you to eat more fruits and vegetables?!" He sounded incredulous. He's been whining lately about the amount of vegetables I make him eat, and that's just for dinner. He doesn't even have to eat my big salad lunch and my fruit and/or veggie snack.

Jason and I talked a bit about why I'm eating the way I am now. I did low-fat originally, but then I stopped losing weight. I started researching and really becoming interested in nutrition, and I began limiting my carbs (ie, grains) and focusing on whole foods. I started losing weight again. Now I've plateaued again.

I told Jason, "I think the solution is, I just need to stop eating." He said, "Yeah, that sounds right."

Sigh.

Meeting with the Nutritionist, Part 1

2011-08-30T12:40:00.008-04:00

I have a health professional who recommended I go speak with a nutritionist about my inability to lose weight. I think she's just sick of me whining about being uncomfortable in my own skin, and we've ruled out thyroid. So I said ok, but was reticent because doing my own research has pointed me in a non-Conventional Wisdom direction, as you know.

It went about as well as I expected, and I know the nutritionist could tell I wasn't exactly thrilled, though I tried to be polite. She seemed a little disturbed at the end of the appointment that a light bulb hadn't gone off in my head and I wasn't completely convinced by her points. I told her I would give her tips a try.

Even if I disagree, I'll give it a try.

So here's how it went down. I prepped for this meeting by printing out 4 months' worth of food logs and meticulously writing down my workout on each log day (since SparkPeople doesn't have a report function that lets you print nutritional data and workouts. Get on that, SparkPeople.)

First off, I give the nutritionist credit for generally respecting the fact that I don't want to eat grains, especially wheat. I think it helps that gluten intolerance is getting a lot of exposure in the media nowadays. She was ok with that and we turned to my food charts. She said, "Hmm, well you're averaging about 1500-1800 calories per day based on these. Would you say that's about right?" I nodded. Then she said the thing that made me lose hope, which is, "Well, what it really comes down to is making sure you're taking in fewer calories than you're expending."

Oh really? That's all there is to it? Why didn't I think of that?!

So we went through my standard day, assuming I get up in the morning to work out. It was actually interesting to see when I eat. I usually do pretty good during the day with only eating when I'm actually hungry. It's when faced with a treat at home in the evening that I cave. Which is why I minimize the number of treats we actually have in our home. Which is why Jason always complains that there's nothing to snack on. To him I say, you're welcome.

Anyway, a standard day that begins with a swim goes like this:

6 AM: pre-workout snack of half of a Larabar (to stave off the working out with no food migraine. I get those. Not everyone does. Pre-workout eating is a personal decision, I believe.)

8:30-9 AM: breakfast (usually 4 eggs I cook before work and bring in with me in a 1/2 T of butter. Sometimes I'll have a piece of fruit or half a cup of milk with the eggs, depending on how hungry I am from my swim.)

12:30-1 PM: lunch (big salad. Greens + protein (chicken/tuna/salmon/turkey) + 1-2 T gorgonzola or feta cheese + 1/2-1 oz. sunflower seeds + 1 T. balsamic vinaigrette/bleu cheese/some other vinaigrette dressing)

4 PM: snack (apple/banana/carrots and hummus/celery and natural peanut butter/raw nuts)

7:30-8 PM: dinner (protein + pile of vegetables + possibly some sweet potato or beets)

If I don't work out, I don't eat the pre-workout Larabar (but I might have a Larabar for my afternoon snack), and I usually lose the piece of fruit with breakfast.

So we went through my meals and discussed what I should do differently. First, breakfast. She asked me, "Why do you eat 4 eggs?" Yes, the emphasis was there. I responded that I'm usually starving after swimming and I've found that keeps me satiated until lunch. Now, let's be clear. If we're talking about calories, my breakfasts usually wind up being around 400 calories. I think that's pretty reasonable for breakfast, considering that I have often just swam laps for 45-60 minutes.

Here's how she wants me to change it: lose 2 of the egg yolks. She made some comment about cholesterol. NEVER MIND that the link between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol has been basically negated, so much so that it's even been reported in popular media. NEVER MIND that despite my massive egg intake I actually have low cholesterol (which I told her).

Also, she suggested I add some veggies to the eggs and plan to eat my optional piece of fruit.

This morning I didn't swim so no Larabar. I prepared my eggs and dutifully dumped 2 egg yolks down the drain. Sad. So pretty and yellow and full of nutrients. I didn't have any veggies on hand to throw in easily. I'll work on that for tomorrow. I ate my eggs, and then I ate a banana mid-morning because I was hungry.

(I'm just going to note - usually with 4 eggs, I'm not hungry mid-morning on days I don't work out)

I found it kind of hilarious that after redoing my breakfast plan, she proceeded to draw me a little timeline showing that we use the energy in carbohydrates first, and protein gives more satiety. Then as a quiet side note she tacked on fat at the end and mentioned that it satiates the most and provides energy the longest.

Her chart:

Carbohydrates	Protein	Fat

(the horizontal line represents a few hours)

So, wait. She basically just told me to add in more carbohydrates to my breakfast, even though I told her the protein and fat keeps me satiated and even though her very own diagram shows that energy from carbohydrates is used first and used quickly. I feel like there's a huge disconnect between what she feels like is the correct thing to say and what even she knows is correct science.

It seems to me that it would make more sense to use such a diagram with someone who eats a bagel or a couple doughnuts for breakfast every day. Not for someone who is just fine with a nice protein and fat combo every morning.

Tomorrow: Part 2 in which we discuss lunch, dinner and shaving around 150 calories per day. Also, I am moderately insulted by the nutritionist.

Swim Challenge Update

2011-08-23T21:36:00.003-04:00

So I've been kind of lax on the swim challenge updates. I actually thought I had been pretty lazy about the whole thing, but after going through my SparkPeople fitness record, I realize that while I haven't been perfect, I've been much better than I thought.

My goal is 4 swims per week, either in the pool or open water:

Week 6

3 pool swims

PLUS a few hours of kayaking and a half hour open water swim

PLUS a major, several-hour hike up and down a mountain

Assessment: 4 swims, plus a lot of extra credit.

Week 7

No pool swims. That big hike from Week 6? Wound up kind of crippling me for the majority of the week.

However, after most of the pain had worn off, we went to the beach and I got in a half hour open water swim.

Assessment: Only 1 swim, but my muscles were in major recovery mode.

Week 8

4 pool swims

1 open-water swim

Assessment: Nice!

Finally Recovered

2011-08-16T10:41:00.002-04:00

Today was my first morning back in the pool since our hike. OK, so it didn't actually take my legs over a week to recover, but I did wind up taking most of last week off because my quads were so sore. I'm sure that swimming probably would have helped loosen me up a bit, but I just couldn't pull together the motivation to get to the pool.

However, I did do another open water swim on Saturday when we went to the beach with some friends. At one point I was chugging along, but paused to get my bearings and saw one of the lifeguards waving me in closer. I admit, I ignored him and just kept swimming. First of all, I was still far away from the buoys corralling the beachgoers from the open sea. Second, if I came in closer I would spend my entire swim dodging people. I noticed today in the pool that after swimming in the ocean and fighting the (minuscule) waves and the current, swimming in the pool feels easy.

This morning my coach told me to stop kicking so hard. Ooookay. I have never heard that one before. I have a pretty strong kick, I know. It helps me go fast (and usually means I beat everyone when we use kickboards). But she said that I have too much propulsion in the back and I'm crowding the front. Really? Is that a thing?

Seems to me that if I'm able to keep up the power in my legs over the long run and don't wear myself out, that would be a good thing. I suppose I should listen to my coach, but for the rest of the practice I felt really hampered by not being able to kick like I wanted to, especially when we did the fast sets. Any other swimmers who have been told their legs are too powerful for their own good?

No Pounds Down

2011-08-11T14:21:00.003-04:00

(This is another blog about my weight-loss (or lack thereof) frustration. If you're bored of these posts, skip this and I'll work on posting some more New Hampshire pictures tomorrow.)

I weighed myself this morning, which I told myself I wouldn't do until after Swim Across America, but I did anyway, because I was curious. And partly because last year's hiking pants didn't fit when I tried them on last week. Even though I feel stronger from my swimming and am noticing some more muscle, I don't really feel like the fat is decreasing at all. Just that I have a layer of fat over my new muscles.

I was right, of course. I've gained 5 more pounds.

What?

I have acknowledged on here that I haven't been totally Whole30 compliant during this Whole30 experiment. HOWEVER, I'm not that bad. In fact, to hear Jason tell it, he's going to die if I don't stop making him eat vegetables all the time and if I don't stock up the pantry with processed snack foods immediately.

And, as we all know, I've been swimming 4 times a week (and kayaking! and hiking!). Despite appearances, I am not a lump.

Part of me wants to throw up my hands and give up. Descend into morbid obesity willingly since that's where my body seems to be taking me anyway. Honestly all of the mental energy I spend fretting about my body feels so useless.

But the other part of me (the part that does things like swim 4 times a week and be a lawyer) is concocting plans because there has to be a way to reverse this, doesn't there? So here we go.

Swim 4 times a week (of course).

Log food. Even though I could probably tell you how many calories and carbs I've been eating for the last several weeks with a pretty low margin of error, I'm writing it all down yet again. I'll either see that I really am eating a lot more than I think, or just have it confirmed that being on this looooong plateau really is the irrational event that I think it is.

Walk 10,000 steps, 5 days a week. This week I learned that my heel pain isn't so bad when compared with hiking pain. My heel still hurts, but I'm tired of being so sedentary during the day. Today is beautiful in Providence and I went for a lunch walk because I remembered to bring my sneakers to work. It was lovely, both to get out of the office for a bit, and to be in the sun, walking.

Incorporate strength training. Yeah, I've been lax on this. I'll shoot for twice a week to start.

I was talking about this with someone yesterday and she commented that maybe I'm just one of those people destined to be a bit bigger. My people were survivors so I have this amazingly efficient metabolism. Great. So if we were all starving, everyone would want to breed with me. That's sexy.

Franconia Ridge

2011-08-08T09:05:00.010-04:00

(Just a warning, this is long. If you want to skip my storytelling, just scroll down to the pretty pictures below.)

This past weekend we went up to New Hampshire for a hiking and camping adventure in the White Mountains. We hiked the Franconia Ridge loop trail, climbing up the Falling Waters trail, summiting at Little Haystack, Mt. Lincoln and Mt Lafayette, and coming down the Bridle Path trail. The hike was a personal victory for me since last year I begged off this same hike.

My hiking history is complicated. Jason LOVES hiking. Going up a mountain is his favorite thing ever and I feel really bad that I haven't quite caught the vision. Last year we hiked up the Beaver Brook Trail to Mt. Moosilauke in the White Mountains. The trail starts out all nice and casual in the woods and then ascends almost 2000 feet in a little more than a mile. Which kind of means you're going straight up. They don't mess around in New Hampshire. No sissy switchbacks in New England. It's straight up the mountain, every time.

I fully admit that I did not listen to Jason and take the proper precautions, and I wound up dehydrated about halfway up the mountain. Which means I went the rest of the way up the mountain, then back down that super steep trail feeling like I was going to die. FYI, in the mountains, Gatorade is your friend. The first and last 2 1/2 miles of the trail consist of these giant granite boulders. Going up, you scramble up and over them. Going down, you have to step on each and every boulder and maintain your balance. It's brutal on your quads, calves and ankles on a normal day. That day, my legs were already shaking like crazy from getting dehydrated, so every time I took a giant step down to the next boulder, I fully expected to just fall over.

For 2 1/2 miles.

Super fun.

And it's not like you can just stop because, you know, you're halfway up a mountain.

Fast forward a couple months later and we were back up in the Whites with a group from Jason's lab. We decided to hike the Franconia Ridge loop trail and everyone started out all excited and fearless and feeling like, yeah, we can conquer the mountain! After hiking for 1.4 miles, we reached Cloudland Falls and took a break for pictures and to assess. One of our group looked at the coming trail and said, "Now we start going up." One person in our group had never been hiking before and his face completely fell. He asked, "What have we been doing so far?!" Because even though the trail hadn't been too bad yet, there had already been a few scrambles and a few out-of-breath breaks (for those of us not in primo hiking condition).

Ultimately, he and his girlfriend decided to turn back. They had seen the beautiful falls, and would get in almost a 3-mile hike this way. They were okay with that. I decided to go back with them.

And it's eaten at me ever since. My experience on the Beaver Brook Trail had scared me out of finishing the trail with the group.

So Jason and I decided to go for it again. At the falls, I almost quit again. Almost. Then I saw a bunch of people up above the falls and decided I would like to see that view so we scrambled up there. Then we kept going.

Two things kept me going. One, on the way up to the top of the falls, there was this really annoying narrow, slippery ledge of rock that I had to scramble over. I did not want to go back down that (which is kind of hilarious to think about now, considering the rock faces I had to slide down going down the other side of the ridge several hours later).

The second thing, and this is really the main one, was Jason. He was being such a dear and assuring me that we could turn back if I wanted to. But I knew he would be so incredibly disappointed. I knew he was already worried that this trip was his last chance to convince me to, if not like, then at least not hate hiking. He loves it so much, and after I pushed myself to go up the trail over the falls, I just couldn't turn around.

He gave me a couple of more chances on our way up the mountain to turn back, but at that point, I was determined to do it for myself.

So I did it. It's kind of an amazing route. In one loop, you can get in 3 4,000 foot peaks - though technically Little Haystack doesn't count since there is less than a 200 foot descent between it and Mt. Lincoln, the next peak on the ridge. Whatever. It's the first summit you get to from the Falling Waters Trail and in my mind, it counts.

Starting out - take the Bridle Path .2 miles to Falling Waters (or you can go straight up the Bridle Path to Greenleaf Hut and on to Mt. Lafayette).

The Falling Waters Trail runs parallel to the river, interspersed by lovely waterfalls. The water was pretty low this time of year, but the Cloudland Falls were still lovely.
After this point, the trail veers away from the water and starts going up. New Hampshire is called the Granite State for a reason. There are huge granite boulders everywhere, including on the trail.
Heading up, still fairly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, even if I am a sweaty beast. It was about 75-80 degrees the whole time and pretty muggy (there were storms coming).

One of the reasons I am not the biggest fan of hiking is because I am extremely self-conscious. I've written on here so much about my struggles to lose weight. On Thursday night I tried on the hiking pants I wore last year and they are too small. Such an awful feeling, especially when I've been working so hard with my swimming. So I feel like I'm the fat girl on the mountain and everyone must be looking at me thinking, What is she doing here? (Though if I've learned anything from my experiences at the gym and the pool, it's that people are nothing but encouraging).

Here's the thing, though. Despite my extra weight, despite my flab and cellulite, I was right there with everyone else. I was keeping the same pace as the guys and the skinny girls. They were feeling just as much pain as I was.

The trail is pretty popular so we kept bumping into the same groups of people. We would slog along and come across one or two groups resting. Then we would rest and they would pass us. We would all smile at and say things like, "Slow and steady" or "We're getting there". There's a great camaraderie on the mountain.

First peak! At the top of Little Haystack
Cairn on the ridge.It was my understanding going in that once you get to the ridge, bagging 3 peaks is cake. That's not entirely true. Yes, all 3 peaks run along the ridge. What other people neglected to tell me is that in between each peak is a descent and another ascent. I suppose that's only fair if you're going to count them, but when I was looking up that rocky slope to the summit of Mt. Lafayette, having already come up the trail to Little Haystack, and then gone up again to Mt. Lincoln, I admit to feeling a little defeated.

My motto became "slow and steady" because, really, that's the only way to do it.

We did it! At the top of Mt. Lafayette, the final peak at 5,260 feet.
We ran into an Appalachian Trail thru hiker and his friend at the top, who kindly offered to take the above picture, if we would take theirs. He had a big bushy beard and a huge, beat-up frame pack with camp shoes dangling off the back and when I initially saw him I wondered if he was a thru hiker. Turns out he started in Georgia on March 20th. Amazing!
After resting for awhile at the top of Mt. Lafayette, we started down. It's easy to forget that what you just came up, you now have to go down. 1,000 feet down from the summit of Mt. Lafayette is Greenleaf Hut, which is maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club. Partway to the hut, we started hearing bagpipes on the wind. When we arrived, a man was standing outside of the hut, playing his bagpipes, which he had carried up with him on the trail

Last year Jason and his dad did a multi-day trek and stayed at 3 huts along the way. Jason had suggested earlier in the week that he and I stay at Greenleaf Hut for the night and hike down the next day, but I thought it seemed silly to stop when we were only 3 miles from the car at that point.

Yeah, by the time we got there, it didn't seem so silly anymore. Alas, Jason had listened to me, and we had no reservations for the hut. We made a quick pit stop, and soldiered on down the Bridle Path. Jason took this picture of a lovely flat section of path just as we came back into the scrub forest.

In reality, this is what most of the way down looked like:
Yes, that is a trail.

I actually love this next picture.
Jason took it when I wasn't really paying attention to him, I was just trying to get down the freaking mountain.

The best way to describe the granite is "unrelenting". That was the word we settled on as we made our way down.

Here's our final shot of the hike, back at the start of the trail. Exhausted, but satisfied.
We went for our celebratory dinner at The Common Man, which is becoming a post-hike tradition, and then headed back to camp, where it promptly started raining. It proceeded to rain for the next 15-20 hours. We went to sleep to the rain and woke up to the rain. We packed up camp in the rain and drove out of camp in the rain.

After we left camp, we went into Lincoln, NH for breakfast, then headed back up to the mountains for some more low-key sightseeing. I'll post more about that next time.

The original plan was to camp for 3 nights. I'm sure it would have been very peaceful at the campsites last night since Rhode Island is the only state that has today, a random Monday in August, for a holiday, but Jason took pity on me and agreed to come home early. I was starting to get really sore and had a headache that wouldn't quit. I knew every campsite would be quiet, but very soggy after the hours and hours of rain.

Besides, I'm not exactly sure what we would have done today if we were still up there since another hike is totally out of the question. Probably would have just laid in the tent all day, trying to will enough strength into our legs to actually get out of the tent. No mean feat after a big hike.

I've learned from strength training and past hikes that the 2nd day after is the worst. I was kind of pleased when I woke up yesterday morning and wasn't in as much pain as I thought I would be. Today is worse. Going upstairs is bad, but going downstairs is just brutal. I feel like an absolute hero for walking up and down the stairs 4 times so far today to take care of laundry and other necessities. I deserve a medal.

Sitting here, comfortable in my house, I feel a huge amount of self-satisfaction. I did the trail that scared me last year. I bagged 3 more 4,000-footers so now I have 5 (Camel's Hump in Vermont and Moosilauke are my other 2). I am sore in that satisfying, wow, I really pushed myself hard way. I shared a neat experience with my husband. I saw views that only a small percentage of people ever see.

But, man, was it brutal.

I have a love/hate relationship with hiking up mountains. I'll leave it at that for now.

Whole30 Update

2011-08-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

Well, I suppose I should comment on the Whole30 project that I started with Jenna at The Paleo Project and a bunch of other ladies. We actually have a long email chain going, full of questions and answers and everyone encouraging each other, which has been fantastic to participate in and read.

I must confess, though, I haven't been very rigorous. I've been good enough that I do notice a difference in how I feel when I do eat something non-Paleo, so I think that shows I'm making a generally positive showing in the Paleo effort.

For instance, the other night we had a couple people over for dinner and decided to use up some leftover raw hamburger patties and buns that we had on hand to have a cookout. I was rushing to get home in time to clean and make some sweet potato fries, so I picked up a cherry pie at Whole Foods for dessert. I COULD have eaten the burger without the bun (which I did last week when the burger patties originally made their appearance in our house), but I ate the bun. I also ate some pie and vanilla ice cream. The burger buns were whole wheat and the pie was a no-preservative Whole Foods basic, made with unbleached flour. For sides we had the sweet potato fries (baked with olive oil and a bit of salt) and I made a big salad from our Farm Share veggies. So really, on the whole the meal was not too divergent from what conventional wisdom tells us is healthy, right?

Later that night I crawled into bed with a rotten stomach ache. Not only that, but I was extremely bloated and felt like my stomach was about 2 times its normal size. By morning, I felt fine and was able to get to the pool for my swim, but I really felt yucky the night before.

Based on my own personal experiences, I'm starting to wonder if I have a mild gluten allergy. I don't seem to have the same reaction if I eat corn or rice. I might retain a bit of water, but I don't feel physically ill. Dairy doesn't seem to have a negative impact on me. I think my big problem might be wheat.

Which does not bode well for my traditional Autumn Tennessee Pumpkin Bread. I'm going to need to do some serious baking experimentation over the next couple of months to see if I can figure out a Paleo version.

Injured? Possibly.

2011-08-04T13:23:00.004-04:00

Based on my super scientific Googling of "shoulder blade pain swimming", I think I might have swimmer's shoulder. The truth is, my right shoulder sort of hurts most of the time. I carry all of my tension in my right shoulder, which is exacerbated by my decidedly non-ergonomic office set-up.

(I actually have a good office chair, but crossing my legs under myself like a pretzel while I type probably isn't allowing the chair to live up to its full potential.)

Anyway, this is different than my normal shoulder pain and rather than being located in my lat up near my neck, like usual, the pain is more in my shoulder blade. Or rather deep down and right above my shoulder blade.

During my Masters swim on Tuesday it became more than just a nuisance, but I pushed through and did the workout. Yesterday, I wound up mostly kicking because every time I swam more than a 100, my shoulder started yelling at me. Today was supposed to be my 4th swim of Week 6, but instead, I woke up with a stiff and achey shoulder and decided to just let it go. It's not worth it to do further damage and wind up not being able to swim for a longer period of time.

The causes of swimmer's shoulder are overuse (duh) and crossing your arm over the center of your body during your pull. That second cause is exactly what I've been working on correcting over the last few weeks, but apparently not quickly enough.

We're going hiking and camping this weekend, so I know I'll more than make up for that 4th swim in terms of getting in a workout. I won't be back in the pool until Tuesday and my fingers are crossed that taking 5 days off will help.

Fundraising: Blown Away

2011-08-03T14:26:00.003-04:00

My firm just donated $500 to Swim Across America! I sent out an email to all the attorneys last night, letting them knowing I will be swimming to raise money for cancer research. The firm doesn't have a problem with us letting people know when we're doing these kinds of events.

This morning I had $500 in my fundraising account. I met my goal, just like that, in one fell swoop! I am so grateful. I really do work at the nicest law firm.

If you're reading this and you got my solicitation email, please, don't be put off by the small detail that I have reached my fundraising goal already. Rest assured, I'm still accepting donations for this great cause.

If you're interested in donating and I haven't contacted you directly about it, email me at frazzled dot kelly at gmail and I'll send you the link to my fundraising site.

Mean Girl - Not So Mean Actually

2011-08-02T13:41:00.002-04:00

The mean girl was nice to me today. Maybe it was because her buddy the guy wasn't there today. Maybe it was because we swam side by side the whole time and I kept up with her and so she considers me an equal now. Maybe she was just PMSing 2 weeks ago. The point is, things are good. She actually even complimented me on my ability to hold my breath while dolphin kicking across the length of the pool (one of our drills today). A compliment!

So that's good.

Today we did that drill where I feel like I'm drowning. Here's what it looked like on paper:

8 x 50 on 1:05
1st 25 - 3r, 3l, 2r, 2l, 1r, 1l, opposite arm out front, breathe on stroke side
2nd 25 - 3r, 3l, 2r, 2l, 1r, 1l, opposite arm at side, breathe on side opposite stroke

What that means is we were supposed to do 8 50s in one minute five second intervals. The first 25 consists of 3 strokes with the right arm, 3 strokes with the left arm, 2 strokes with the right arm, 2 strokes with left arm, repeat, with the non-stroking arm stretched out front, breathing on your stroke side.

The second 25 is the killer. It's the same thing EXCEPT the non-stroking arm is at your side and you're supposed to breathe on the side opposite your stroking arm.

So we had to count a lot and breathe at weird intervals and it was kind of a mess. And I felt like I was drowning a little on every 2nd 25.

FYI, there was no WAY we were doing those 50s in 1:05. Even super fast guy in the lane next to us said he was doing them on 1:15.

So am I weird when I say, I love Master swimming? Almost drowning on a regular basis is exhilarating apparently!

Beautiful Days!

2011-08-01T10:54:00.002-04:00

This past weekend the weather was absolutely perfect! Sunny, clear, not too hot. Amazing!

Unfortunately, I had to work on Saturday, so I had to cancel our weekend camping/hiking trip. But it wasn't so bad. I brought everything I needed home with me on Friday and set myself up in the backyard to work on Saturday. We have 2 big oaks and 1 maple over the backyard, which makes it inconvenient for growing anything that needs sun, but means we have a shady sylvan nook in the back.

You like that use of the word "sylvan"? The nice weather is making me poetic.

So I woke up Saturday morning and went for a swim - my 4th of the week, which means week 5 of my Swim Challenge was a success! Then I came home and made us some smoothies and set up to work in the backyard. (Also, we might have gone to Cheesecake Factory later for linner/dunch for 1/2 price cheesecake for cheesecake day. NOT PALEO. But yummy!)

I managed to get a bunch of work done Saturday which meant even though our camping trip was canceled, we could still have an excursion on Sunday. Jason and I went kayaking and had an awesome time. I also took the opportunity to do about a half hour of open-water swimming in the ocean. It was a little tough, I have to say. First of all, a storm or something had blown in a bunch of seaweed, so I kept running headlong into seaweed and getting it caught in my fingers during my strokes. The water was completely murky, which is very unusual for that beach.

Also, as I swam up the beach, I had to fight the current the whole way, plus the waves which were rolling in at about a 45 degree angle and hitting me in the face periodically. Swimming back was easier, except for it was harder to sight for some reason and I kept getting turned so instead of swimming parallel to the beach, I wound up swimming into shore and had to keep swimming back out. All kinks I need to work out before my swim in September.

That said, it felt really great. I liked the feeling of actually getting somewhere, rather than just going back and forth in the pool. The pool at the Y is 25 yards and sometimes I wish I had a 50-yard pool available because, while I like the boost I get from the flipturns, when I'm swimming distance, it would be nice not to have to turn so often. Swimming in open water definitely appeals to me.

Plus, it was AMAZING to be swimming outside again. I can't express how much I miss swimming in the sun.

So, initial plans foiled, but a great Summer weekend just the same!

Feed Me

2011-07-29T14:06:00.003-04:00

Fitnessista just wrote about her first pregnancy hormone/hunger-related meltdown, then asked everyone about their own meltdowns. I don't have the pregnancy excuse, but I definitely have the hunger meltdowns. I thought I would share, lest you think this blog is only about me rocking my swims.

I have a tendency to get insane (and migrainey) when I have low blood sugar. I discovered long ago that if I don't eat at least a little something before I work out, I get a migraine. Doesn't matter if I eat right after the workout, the damage is done.

Jason has found out the hard way that when I get too hungry, I get snippy and irrational, and we need to get me some food, stat. Eventually I will become completely implacable and all sorts of food will sound WRONG, which, as you can imagine, is super fun for Jason.

Our worst experience was when we were in Paris about 3 months after we got married. We had 3 days to see all of Paris and crammed those days chock full. One day we took the Metro out to Versailles, toured the palace and grounds, came back to Paris, and went to the Louvre for its free night. The plan was to get dinner when we got back to Paris. Only, every place we looked, Jason deemed too expensive. And, let's be honest, he wasn't wrong. Europe is expensive!

As we walked from one cafe to the next, I felt myself getting more and more frustrated and exhausted and just ticked off in general. Then Jason, observing my foul mood, said we could go anywhere I wanted. But by that point, we had crossed that insane line and nothing sounded good to me anymore.

Eventually, we ran out of time and needed to get in the LONG line to enter the Louvre. We finally got inside, and I felt miserable. Tired, getting a headache, not excited about being in Paris anymore, or, in fact, about being married to Jason at that moment.

So Jason sat me down on a bench and came back with a Louvre vending machine sandwich that probably cost about forty-seven dollars and was kind of nasty, but, boy, did I cheer up after eating half of that.

That was the worst and Jason mentions it periodically in the context of, "We don't want another Paris experience on our hands." It still happens, though.

I vividly remember a couple of weeks ago telling Jason in my angry voice that I realized I was being completely irrational, but I couldn't help it and I was tired and hungry and if he knew what was good for him, he would get out of my face and let me just make dinner alone in the kitchen.

He left the kitchen.

So let this serve as my apology to Jason for all past and future hunger meltdowns. Because I know I'm insane, but I know it will happen again.

Swim Challenge Update

2011-07-25T18:00:00.001-04:00

Just in case you were wondering, the Swim Challenge is going great! I'm counting Week 3 as a success because even though I only swam 3 times that week, I showed up at the gym for the 4th swim, and it's not my fault the pool was closed. I don't get credit on my fitness tracker on SparkPeople or on the Fitbit, of course, but I'm giving myself a pass for my personal challenge.

Week 4 was a success too. I swam Tuesday, then Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I thought I would be worn out by Saturday morning, but I actually rocked the difficult 2800 yard workout our coach emailed to us, and even tacked on another 200 yards to get to an even 3000.

This week, I'm a little unsure about completing 4 swims. We're supposed to go hiking and camping this weekend, and I blew off swimming this morning because I never am thinking straight when that alarm goes off at 5:30. Tomorrow is Masters, but I have an 8 AM work meeting. However, I'm thinking about possibly scooting over to the gym super early and getting in 45 minutes.

Never mind that we're going to a concert tonight in Cambridge and won't be home until late. I really want to meet my goals! We'll see how realistic that feels tomorrow morning.

Fitbit Results Lately: Am Slug

2011-07-25T10:15:00.003-04:00

I love my Fitbit, but the bummer part is that in the same way that your body adapts to exercise, the Fitbit adapts too. So my one hour of swimming in the morning 4 times a week is not giving me as big a bang for my buck as it was a few weeks ago. Added to that is the fact that I've been really babying my heel in the hope that it will feel better, and my daily steps are averaging about 3,000 per day. Pathetic!

Being easy on my heel hasn't really helped. I've been trying to get better about taking anti-inflammatories regularly, but I keep forgetting. Maybe I'll start setting an alarm to remind me. The point is, my heel hurts whether I walk a bunch or I don't. So maybe I should just bring my sneakers to work and start doing my lunch walks again. I can start out easy, a half hour at a time or something like that.

I'm just getting really tired of being still all day. It's especially bad on the days when I swim in the morning because I arrive at work buzzing from endorphins and I just want to MOVE. But I have the least moving job in the whole world, so all of that energy goes to waste. I think it would help to know I'm going to get out on my lunch hours again.

Mean Girls

2011-07-21T14:56:00.002-04:00

Joining Masters swimming has been awesome. I have 2 coach-planned workouts per week and generally get nothing but encouragement from the other swimmers.

Only...I got moved up a lane, right? There's another woman in my lane who is kind of brusque, kind of stand-offish. To the point of it being a little awkward when she doesn't respond when I speak directly to her. There's just me and her and a guy in our lane now, and she's super chummy with him.

(Though, 2 weeks ago when he went first, she made a remark to me about how she kept catching him and how his hard swim doesn't really look like he's going that hard. Uh, ok. I wasn't really sure what to say, so I just shrugged and suggested she tell him she would like to go first in the next set)

It's just odd - we're grown women, after all. We'll be getting ready for the next set and she'll make a general comment, but it's very obvious that's it's only directed at the guy in the lane, and I'm not included. Or she won't make eye contact with me. Or I'll say something to her and she'll just ignore it.

Anyway, like I said, it's odd. I figure I'll just keep being friendly to her and see what happens. At least the guy is nice to me.

WINNING!

2011-07-19T10:04:00.002-04:00

(Only 5 months since we all learned how crazy Charlie Sheen really is, and that subject line already feels dated)

I feel awesome!!

That's pretty much all there is to it. I woke up this morning feeling refreshed for the first time in MONTHS. I went to the pool and swam with my Masters group. I'm still in the fast lane*, and I'm keeping up pretty well

Seriously, someone smack me the next time I forget how good I feel when I'm not eating crap. I tell myself over and over not to forget, yet I always do. I really need to make this a lifestyle, and not just something I do here and there.

I've cut out the grains, the sugar, the majority of the dairy (I'm still sprinkling cheese on my veggies because I don't want to waste it. Also, parmesan cheese on roasted broccoli is the best thing ever). This time I haven't cut out fruit, though. The Paleo/Primal people let you eat fruit, just not too much. I think knowing that I CAN have a banana if I want it, helps me not feel deprived and makes this whole plan feel more liveable.

Still not weighing and measuring myself at all. I'm just focusing on being healthy. I think my stomach is flatter, I think my thighs have a little less visible cellulite, I think my calves are getting more defined. If I'm wrong, it doesn't really matter, because the point is, I feel great!

* Well, the fastER lane. Faster than where I was. There are these 2 freaks of nature in the lane next to us who do 100s on the 1:30, but I just ignore them when I'm assessing how well I'm doing.

Reason #427 Why It's Best To Just Stay Away from Carbs and Caffeine

2011-07-18T09:16:00.002-04:00

Detox sucks.

I suppose I could just leave it at that, but maybe if I give more details, I will remember this the next time I decide drinking 3-4 Diet Cokes a day is an AWESOME idea.

Basically, I've had a headache since Saturday afternoon around 3. It varies in intensity, but is mainly of the behind one eyebrow, stabbing me in the head, migraine-variety. Saturday I started the Whole30, which means no grains, no sugar, no processed junk (which translates to NO DIET COKE).

I admit, I had a Diet Coke yesterday afternoon because I just wanted the headache to ease off a bit so I could get done some of the million things around the house that needed to get done. It helped for a little bit, but then the headache came back full force just as I was going to bed, and stayed with me until, well, now, really. Which meant I was not getting up to go swim this morning, that's for sure.

Whenever I detox, it usually takes about 3 days before the junk is out of my system and I feel better. I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

WHOLE30 Fail

2011-07-15T14:00:00.001-04:00

So remember that whole food discussion I had not so long ago and how I was going to do a WHOLE30 and get on the Paleo train? Well, it didn't work out like I hoped it would. First of all, there is food in the fridge that I just didn't want to waste by throwing out. Mostly dairy - cheese and milk.

However, the bigger issue was the caffeine. I had a 2-hour presentation yesterday morning and work has been so crazy busy lately that I hadn't really had a chance to go over my materials since I submitted them in May. I knew I would have to hurriedly review everything Wednesday night, then get up early on Thursday to get to the seminar location by 8 AM. It occurred to me that maybe these couple of days weren't the best time to ween myself off of Diet Coke (which I've been drinking a lot of lately).

Apparently my personal license to have caffeine equaled no holds barred crappy eating in my brain. I really don't know where it came from, but yesterday was kind of a junk food free-for-all. I didn't even TRY to eat the Paleo/low-carb option. Not even marginally.

Now, though, I have no excuse. I have a weekend ahead of me with no huge responsibilities, only social commitments. It's the perfect opportunity to knock it off with the caffeine. So tomorrow I take a deep breath, and I show the self-restraint that I know is there, but has been lacking lately.

If this is like prior times when I've laid off the Diet Coke, in a couple of weeks, it will probably taste disgusting to me. Which I know is a good thing, what with all the chemicals in those little cans, but is kind of sad too since Diet Coke with Lime has become a nice mid-afternoon treat for me. Must acquire new, healthy treat options!

I Need A Ruling Here...

2011-07-15T08:44:00.004-04:00

I'm not going to meet my challenge of swimming 4 times a week for Week 3. I know this because regardless of my Herculean effort this morning to pull myself out of bed after not getting a lot of sleep on Wednesday night, giving a 2-hour presentation yesterday and having another late night last night for a friend's birthday party, I got to the gym and the pool was closed. Apparently the lifeguard didn't show up for work this morning.

I'm pretty positive I won't be able to leave work early two Fridays in a row to make the lap swim this evening (though if the opportunity presents itself, I'll jump at it).

Jason designated himself the official arbiter of these matters and declared I get to count this day for my challenge. Thoughts?

Let's Talk Food

2011-07-12T09:00:00.003-04:00

I've decided to take on a food challenge in addition to my swimming challenge. I think I've got the swimming pretty well under control, and I've succeeded with fitness challenges before so I know I can push myself to get this one done too.

However, my eating has been - not so great. For instance, I had some graham crackers and milk for an evening snack on Sunday. I usually don't even buy processed foods. It's much easier to eat healthy when the stuff isn't in the house and it would take some major effort to get it. I only had the graham crackers because I bought s'mores fixings for the hiking/camping trip that never happened on the 4th. Granted, I only really had one meal Sunday, but the point isn't really the calorie intake, it's WHAT I'm eating that's the issue.

Over the past couple of weeks I've really let my eating slide and have taken in a fair amount of sugar and grains. It's really hard to remember in the moment that those types of foods make me feel bad. (TMI Alert->) When I cut out the carbs, I very rarely have gas or have any sort of upset stomach. When I eat carbs, all that comes rolling back.

Also, I've been drinking way, WAY too much Diet Coke. To the point that on a couple of days it's made me feel shaky. My favorite thing right now is Diet Coke with a packet of True Lime. I'm still a fan of True Lime (like a lime wedge in a packet!), but I need to lay off the Diet Coke. Need to remember: water with True Lime is tasty too.

I've decided to leap on Jenna at the Paleo Project's Whole30 Challenge. This is a challenge to eat Paleo for 30 days. Jenna's challenge started yesterday, but I'm starting today because we had friends in town and had a farewell dinner last night at a restaurant that has amazing desserts. Might as well end my crappy eating with a bang.

On the Paleo diet you cut out grains, sugar, legumes and dairy. I honestly think the dairy part will be the hardest for me because I love dairy. I use cheese a lot to accent my vegetable dishes and to spice up my salads. I've never noticed any type of physical reaction to dairy, so I'll try adding dairy back in after these 30 days and see if it has any effect on me. Fingers crossed that it doesn't and I can bring reasonable amounts of dairy back into my diet. But for these 30 days, I'm going to do the real challenge.

The Paleo diet also focuses on whole foods (thus, the WHOLE30 challenge). I generally eat whole foods anyway (occasional graham crackers notwithstanding) so the cooking and planning part won't be hard. It's just time-consuming. I've been swamped at work lately and I know the only way I will succeed is if I plan, use the crock pot more than I have been this summer, and PLAN.

Jason says he'll be happy to pick up my slack in the Diet Coke department. He's so giving.

Swim Challenge: Week 2 - Success!

2011-07-11T10:18:00.002-04:00

Week 2 went off without a hitch. Well, except for my procrastination that I wrote about in my last post. But I got in 4 swims, even if I didn't get them in as leisurely as I might have hoped.

Friday I had the opportunity to swim the mile again, since that was in our workout of the week from our Masters coach. I shaved 1:05 off my time*, which means I swam it in 28:55. Nice! I think it helped that I could go at 5 PM, instead of 6 AM. I swim better after I've been up for awhile. 9 AM is really my optimal lap swimming time, but I have to go to work and dumb stuff like that.

*Not 1:55 which I mistakenly posted to Facebook, but couldn't erase until a couple of hours later after a couple people had Liked it and I didn't want to lose that positive reinforcement. I am actually really pleased with 1:05 since that's a lot of time to take off in a week.

I was supposed to swim this morning (Monday) and start off the week right, but I just couldn't get up. We have friends visiting who have 3 little boys under the age of 4. They arrived Saturday night and I honestly don't know how their parents do it.

Oh, wait, yes I do. The parents usually go to sleep by 8:30 or 9.

The kids are actually pretty low-key, as really small kids go, but their energy still wears me out. Added to that is the fact that Jason hates the idea of having the AC on all night, so I'm usually hot all night, and wind up waking up about 150 times per night. So sometimes I have a hard time getting up at 5:45 AM.

My plan for this week is to swim tomorrow (Masters!), Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

I'm a little worried about my right shoulder. Or rather, my right shoulder blade. I have a definite ache there when I swim, and even a bit when I'm not swimming. I want to get in my 4 swims per week, but I don't want to hurt my shoulder. Hopefully it won't end up being a problem.

Natural State: Sloth

2011-07-07T08:44:00.002-04:00

This morning I posted on the daily thread of my SparkPeople swimming group that I work really well with a goal, but otherwise I'm a slacker. This is Week 2 of my 4 days a week swimming challenge and I have already identified a pattern. I start out strong and swim on Monday and Tuesday. The plan for the last 2 weeks has been to take Wednesday and Friday off, and swim on Thursday and Saturday.

Only, Thursday morning rolls around and it just feels so good to sleep in. It probably has something to do with the fact that Wednesday nights are our Young Womens activity nights so I end up winding down my evening later than usual.

(Maybe I should change my strategy and swim Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday... I'll think about that.)

Then I have to make sure to swim both Friday and Saturday to meet my goal, and hope nothing gets in the way to distract me, which on Saturdays is always a possibility. I have a feeling, though, that if not for this challenge, I could easily convince myself not to wake up early and only get in 2 or 3 swims per week. Because sleep is nice and, no matter how good those endorphins feel, exercise is hard.

I think I'm going to continually need to set challenges for myself in order to keep my exercising consistent. Maybe this is what has been lacking in the past when I've fallen off the exercise bandwagon. This challenge still has 10 weeks left so I don't have to have any amazing ideas until then, but I'll be thinking about it.

In other news, today I noticed that my right tricep is getting a little bit defined. When I noticed it in the mirror while doing my hair, I thought, "My arms are going to look awesome in 10 weeks!" I'm positive I'm the only one who can see it, but it's great motivation.

2 MPH

2011-07-02T18:09:00.001-04:00

2 mph is roughly my speed in the water. I swam a mile during my workout today to get an idea of my timing when I didn't feel yucky like the last time I swam a mile. It took me 30 minutes exactly and I swam it straight through instead of breaking it up in chunks like last time.

I think I'll time myself swimming a mile every couple of weeks to see if I'm actually improving.

In related news, today was Day 4 of swimming this week, which means Week 1 was a success! I don't know if I'm losing any weight, but I feel stronger and on the days I swim, I have so much energy and an extra bounce in my step.

Not To Be All Judgey McJudgerson, But...

2011-07-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

Wednesday night we took the Youth from church (ages 12-17) to a Pawtucket Red Sox game. The Paw Sox are the minor league team to the Boston Red Sox.

A couple of rows down from us was a family that was kind of a study in obesity. There was the maybe 6 year-old boy sucking down a 20 ounce bottle of Mountain Dew. He was still pretty skinny because, you know, he's 6.

Sitting next to him was his I'm guessing 10 year-old brother, eating ballpark food and drinking soda. He was a bit chunky.

Next to him was the approximately 15 year-old oldest brother, also eating crap and drinking a big Pepsi. The oldest brother was carrying a pretty large amount of extra weight.

Anyway, as I looked from the youngest with his Mountain Dew to the oldest, I just thought, Do they not see the connection here?

* Full disclosure: I ate nachos for dinner Wednesday night. And I paid for it. My stomach felt yucky for the rest of the evening.

Paddles

2011-06-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

Check out these bad boys
They're called Techpaddles apparently and my coach whipped them out on Tuesday morning for us to try out. We were all stumped.

Here's how you wear them.

This means you enter the water fist-first. This is HARD. However, after swimming a 100 wearing the techpaddles, I definitely felt my stroke in my biceps, which I usually don't at all. My triceps generally do most of the work. So effective tool? Yes. Do I ever want to use them again if given the choice? Not really.

Rest Day

2011-06-29T08:45:00.002-04:00

I actually woke up early enough to go swimming this morning and could have gone, but I made myself roll over and doze for another 45 minutes or so because I know if I swim too much too soon, I'll injure myself. The last time I ramped up the swimming too fast, I injured my arm and couldn't do anything more than kick for a month or so.

Yesterday was Masters swimming and we had a good workout. The middle set was 3 100s, 3 200s and 3 300s. I thought I would be dead by those 300s (12 laps for the non-swimmers), but I actually felt really energized. We had a new guy in our lane and I noticed that when I went first, he was on my feet for the first few laps. So I let him go first, and realized that he's fast when he starts, but then he loses his steam and I am right on his feet for the last several laps. It's good to know I can keep an even pace. That will be a good skill for the swim in September.

One thing I forgot about swimming - by 10:30 or 11 PM, I am OUT. I get up at 5:45 or so, swim, then feel pretty energized all day. But after 10:30, I am absolutely useless and can't keep my eyes open. It's pretty sudden and really annoys Jason when I drift off right in the middle of a conversation with him (which has happened before).

Swim Challenge: Week 1

2011-06-27T09:51:00.002-04:00

Today was Day 1 of my new challenge. We're thinking about going out of town this weekend, so I knew I HAD to swim this morning or else I would be swimming the next 4 days in a row with no break. I think a goal to swim 4 times a week is perfect for me because it's enough that it pushes me, but not so much that I'll injure myself like I have in the past when I've ramped up the swimming too quickly.

I also want to work in a couple of days of strength training, but since Swim Across America is my ultimate goal at the end of thee 12 weeks, I'm officially just trying to get in the 4 swims per week.

Being an overachiever, I tried to get in 4 swims last week even though my challenge hadn't started. I left work a little early on Friday and went to the pool. I was only 8 laps into my swim when the lifeguard pulled everyone out because someone threw up IN the pool.

Ew.

So that was a bust. But I figured they would have shocked the pool by Saturday morning and I could go then.

Only I had to pick up Jason at the Boston airport Friday night and his flight was almost 3 hours late. So what was supposed to be a midnight pick up, wound up being closer to 3 AM. We dropped off his colleague in Needham, got home a little after 4 AM and didn't wake up until 11:20.

Oh well. I got in 2 swims last week at least. This week, though, I will swim 4 times!

New Challenge: SWIM!

2011-06-24T09:12:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I swam a mile in 30 minutes. I met up with C, a lady from my Masters group, and we swam this week's workout from our coach, which included a mile swim broken down this way:

275
250
225
200
175
150
125
100
75
50
25
Rest :10 between each distance above.
Time yourself and at the end subtract 1:40 and you have your time for a swimming mile (1650 yards)

The thing is, I felt terrible. I was exhausted getting into the pool and my head started pounding about midway through the 1650 yards. C was tired too and we both acknowledged that our pace was slower than the last time we swam together.

So I think 30 minutes when I feel like poo isn't too bad. We agreed to do the mile again on a day when we were both feeling better. I think I would prefer to just swim the 1650 straight, but doing the distance intervals is a good way to get in a mile if the idea of swimming 1650 seems a little overwhelming.

But back to the point of this post. I've decided to do a swim fundraiser in September called Swim Across America. It's a mile of open water swimming with a bunch of people, which I've never done before, so that's a challenge in and of itself. I want to make sure I'm ready for this and that I train enough. Maybe I can even swim the mile under a half hour.

So my new challenge is to swim 4 times a week for at least 45 minutes, but preferably an hour. As the lakes and ocean around here get warmer in July and August, I'm going to try to swim 1 time per week in open water to get used to it. My Y just started a Swim Across America team, so hopefully we'll do some training together too.

Challenge starts Monday!

Back in the Water - And It Feels So Good

2011-06-21T10:51:00.004-04:00

After almost 3 weeks, I went for a swim this morning. My Masters group was canceled last week, so I haven't been in the pool since just before we went to England. It was lovely! (And hard. Our coach is doing distance swims for everyone who is swimming Save the Bay and distance on top of distance after being out of the pool for a few weeks is no joke.)

I also made a date to meet up with another lady in the group on Thursday morning so we can swim together. So at least I know I'll get in one more swim this week - hopefully more.

On Sunday we went out to Cape Cod to hang out with Jason's brother and family. Our sister-in-law, Sarah, has a longtime family connection to the Cape and was there for a family wedding. We spent time with her parents and her sister's family as well. Sarah's dad owns a running store and is a big-time runner. He's the one who fitted me for my current sneakers, which fit great, but still didn't prevent my heel injury.

He asked Jason and me if we were still running. Jason said he was going to start again. I said, "I've been swimming." I explained that I'm pretty positive I have some plantar fasciitis going on, and Sarah's dad was about as unsurprised as they come because he saw for himself that I have the flattest feet in the world.

Jason then asked him if he had any tips for me in dealing with the injury. He nodded wisely and said, "Keep swimming."

Okay then. I've said it before, but I think it's pretty clear that I am NOT meant to be a runner.

Hung Over

2011-06-13T09:30:00.003-04:00

Jason is out of town and I took the opportunity to do some extensive house cleaning this weekend, including unpacking my last box from our move 11 months ago. The office has been our continual work in progress, and instead of organizing as I go, I have taken to stacking papers and other officey-type things on an increasingly taller and more precarious pile on top of this cabinet in my corner of the office. As of Saturday evening, I can say that my part of the office is unpacked and organized. Jason's part is another story, but he's been working on it.

I can't tell you how satisfying it is to finally have this project over and done. It has been looming over me for months, and it was only getting worse as time went on. I filled up 3 garbage bags full of trash and two smaller bags full of shredables and recyclables. So satisfying.

During my cleaning, I gathered up a couple of pans and tupperwares that I've acquired over the last several months, but that actually belong to ladies at church. There's an old-fashioned idea that someone (probably my Southern relatives) hammered into my head at some point that you don't return a container empty. So I decided to make some brownies.

Only we only had one package of brownie mix (Ghiradelli!), which wasn't enough for a big pan. However, we did have a decadent triple-chocolate cake mix, so I combined them. It occurred to me as I was putting the pan into the oven that I probably should have only used one egg instead of the 3 that the cake mix called for. Sure enough, the batter puffed up and became a dark chocolate cake, rather than brownies. It's not really convenient to give someone a third of a cake (uniced), so I had nothing.

Didn't really matter since none of the 3 ladies I needed to return things to were at church yesterday. I suppose I could look at this as an opportunity for a brownie do-over.

The point is, I have had a big chocolate cake sitting on my kitchen island since Saturday afternoon. As I've been running around, up and down stairs, throwing away trash, gardening, etc., I've stopped periodically and grabbed a couple bites of cake.

Today I have a total chocolate cake hangover. I feel exhausted and headachey. I felt it yesterday when I had a piece of cake after lunch. First, I felt that buzz (literally, feels like something under my skin is buzzing) from the sugar. Then about a half hour later I completely crashed and fell asleep right there on the couch while watching TV. I wasn't tired at all when I originally sat down with my lunch.

Tonight when I get home from work the rest of that chocolate cake is going in the trash.

English Breakfast...

2011-06-08T16:49:00.004-04:00

...is great for low-carbing.

So long as you don't overindulge in the Continental Breakfast options around the corner.

Or the readily available English chocolate.

England!

2011-06-06T09:10:00.002-04:00

I wrote a bit about last week's choir tour in England on my other blog. It was pretty amazing actually. Here are a few pictures:

Confession

2011-05-26T09:00:00.001-04:00

I feel so bad. I broke Jason's Fitbit!

Saturday, I did a bunch of laundry and I grabbed his pajama pants off the bed because he has a tendency to let them get - how shall I say this delicately? - stinky before washing them. Or before I demand he let me wash them. They're his favorite fleece pants that his aunt made into fleece cargo pants with pockets all over them. The man loves his cargo pants.

Later in the day we were driving somewhere and he mentioned he forgot to put his Fitbit on that morning.

I didn't put the two together until later that night when he asked, "Where are my fleece pants?" and then informed me that his Fitbit was in one of the pockets. I always, always check the pockets of his pants and shorts before I wash them, but it never occurred to me to check his pajama pockets.

I RAN down to the basement and pulled out all the clothes before finding his sad, damp Fitbit at the very bottom of the washing machine.

But wait! It worked!

Only then it stopped working.

I read on the Fitbit community pages how other people have saved theirs after laundering by letting them sit in something that absorbs water (like rice) so it's been sitting in a tupperware of special crystal absorbant kitty litter (CLEAN kitty litter) for the past few days. Last night, Jason tried it and it was still dead.

He is obviously so disappointed, but trying to be nice to me about it. I keep telling him not to worry because I'm going to buy him a new one. He says that's not necessary, but whatever. What's the point of having the Number 1 active score if you can't beat your husband's active score, in addition to the score of other friends and acquaintances? I have to have someone to lord it over at home.

(Our friend Deborah has now bumped me off the active score top spot again, but I'll be back!)

Challenge. Over!

2011-05-25T09:00:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was Day 30 of my 30-Day Fitness Challenge and I only missed one day! That's right, at least 30 minutes of activity a day for 30 days. Well, 29 out of 30 days. I'm feeling okay about missing that one day since I was super sore and figured I needed to give my muscles a break.

I'm proud of myself for sticking to it. I'm flattered and excited by how many people have told me I've motivated them.

Yet, there's the disappointment of knowing I haven't lost any weight... In fact, I gained 1.2 pounds in the past 30 days. BUT, I might have lost a few inches. Finally! Actual movement! In a downward direction!

I lost about half an inch off my waist (for reals, not just me pulling the tape tight) and maybe a quarter inch off my hips (my birthing hips are always latecomers to this fat loss thing). Not major, but improvement. My thighs and calves are also definitely smaller.

Oh my gosh, though, if the loss if going to be this slow...The thought is exhausting. I'm hoping that this is actually just the beginning of a positive trend that will get faster the longer I do it.

On the positive side, in this past month, I've gotten stronger, I'm swimming faster and my resting heart rate has probably decreased by a couple of beats per minute.

We're going on a trip in a few days and when I get back I want to start another challenge, but I'm not sure what that challenge will be yet. Someone suggested P90X, but I think the plyometric cardio may be a bit rough on my heel. Maybe I'll focus more tightly on my diet this time. Any ideas?

Anyway, I'm just going to enjoy our trip and not think about this for a week and a half.

Thinking...

2011-05-24T09:00:00.002-04:00

I've never actually engaged in disordered eating behavior, but that doesn't mean that my mind has never flirted with the idea. I've been known to think about ways I could severely restrict food and speed up my weight loss, even though in the smart part of my brain I know that's not how it really works. I would make a plan like, OK, tomorrow, I'm just going to eat this little bit and that's IT. Or, tomorrow, I'm not going to eat all day, and then just have a little dinner.

Then I would forget all about it and never do it. Which is obviously for the best.

Yesterday afternoon, I found myself thinking this way again. With as much knowledge as I have gleaned about how metabolism works and knowing that I don't want to completely shut mine down, I think, well maybe if I just really didn't eat hardly anything, eventually I would HAVE to lose weight.

I know it's messed up and while I wish I could just be this pillar of strength and right thinking all the time, this stall in my weight loss has really, REALLY got me down. I don't want to be skinny, I just want to be normal. And not even normal on the BMI, but normal for me (which is still well into "overweight" for BMI, but I don't believe in BMI). I want to feel comfortable in my own skin and not feel like a sausage in my jeans (that were kind of loose at one point!). I want to look at pictures of myself again and not cringe.

I've talked with 2 medical professionals about this in the past couple of weeks, not as my main reason for seeing them, but as a side note. I got my thyroid checked and that's not the problem. Both of them asked if I want to see a nutritionist.

First, I know the nutritionist will spout the standard low-fat, whole grains things, which I don't believe in anyway. The only time I've managed to lose weight over the past couple of years is when I've limited carbs. Plus, I just feel better without all the carbs. On Friday I went to a work lunch and the ONLY thing they had was sandwiches. Not even a side salad. I ate some of a roll, but pulled the meat out of the rest of it. Just that part of a roll had me completely falling asleep at my desk a little while later. I haven't experienced the mid-afternoon crash like that in ages.

Second, I just have to laugh because nutrition has kind of become my hobby and I've read all different viewpoints ad nauseum. Maybe they don't believe me because to them I am just this overweight (nay, obese, says the almighty BMI) girl and so I OBVIOUSLY don't know what I'm doing at all.

Third, I record my food and my exercise pretty religiously because I like numbers. I've been doing this fairly consistently for a few years now. I know how many calories I eat. I know how many calories I expend. So do Sparkpeople and Fitbit. That's not the problem.

When I told Jason that my thyroid was normal he said "Well, that's good." Yeah, it's good I don't have a medical problem. But it just means that right now I don't have an answer either.

Test Results

2011-05-23T14:59:00.002-04:00

Thyroid is normal. So that's not the problem. And at least now when people suggest it, I can say, "I just had it tested. That's not the problem."

Even amid my frustration, I'm continually flattered by the number of people who have asked about my 30-Day Challenge updates that I post on Facebook, and those who have told me that I have inspired them.

Good News and Bad News

2011-05-19T10:09:00.002-04:00

Bad News: Last night after shredding, I felt a new, stabbing pain in my heel. Neat. I think I need to lay off the cardio portion of the 30-Day Shred, which generally involves lots of bouncing on your feet. Maybe I can just do the weight and abs sections of all 3 workout levels at once and count that as my strength training. Today I'm totally limping around which, you know, is awesome.

Good News: Generally when I ease up on my heel during the day, wear my splint at night, and ice my heel in the evenings, it actually seems to improve. I guess I just need to let it improve, and not be so impatient. Since I sit for most of the day, I brought my splint to work and am wearing it while I'm seated. Maybe if I keep my foot in the right position for longer, those fascia will get a chance to heal.

Bad News: Today is Day 25 of my challenge and I decided to measure myself. Not officially - that will come after the challenge - but just to see if maybe there was some improvement there since the scale obviously isn't going down. The verdict: nope. Well, I might have lost a quarter inch in my waist, but I also might have just been pulling the tape tight. My calves are a tad smaller, and that's one measurement I can't fake because they are solid rocks and there's no pulling the tape tight on those. (They are also the reason I can't wear knee-high boots.) But the hips, the arms, the thighs, are all exactly what they were 25 days ago when I started this challenge. Frustrating!

Good News: I rocked my swim this morning. On Tuesday, a lady in my Masters group asked if I wanted to meet up to swim our emailed workout together. We got together this morning and discovered that she has been doing the D-level workouts, while I've been doing the C-level workout. She decided to challenge herself and do the C workout with me, and she couldn't stop gushing (to me and to one of her buddies in the locker room) about what a great workout it was and how I pushed her because I'm such a good swimmer. The thing is, she pushed me too in a way. For instance, we swam a 400 right in the middle of the set, and once I set the pace and realized she was right there with me, I felt pressured (in a good way) to keep up the pace.

So when the scale and the measuring tape aren't improving, at least I know someone thinks I'm an awesome swimmer. That was a nice ego boost.

Weight

2011-05-17T16:29:00.001-04:00

I just went to the doctor about something unrelated to my weight. They weighed me of course, and I'm 6 pounds heavier than the last time I was there.

So while I was there, I had blood drawn to get my thyroid checked. The thing is, I don't really think I have any of the other symptoms for hypothyroid. But if there isn't a problem, that's one thing I can check off the list.

I'm just feeling so defeated by my body at this point. I feel stronger, and I know I'm in good shape. I just have 40 extra pounds hanging on. Yeah, it's up to 40 now.

On the other hand, my bp is 116/68 and my resting heart rate is 54 bpm.

Day 21: Rest Day

2011-05-15T21:30:00.003-04:00

Today I cried uncle. I worked too hard over the last couple of days and my body was just begging for rest today.

Friday after work I did Jillian Michaels's 30-Day Shred (or "shredded". I like that use of the verb). I forgot how much that DVD makes me a sweaty beast! Not only that, but it works some muscles like nothing else does.

Saturday morning I got up and swam for an hour. I modified my Masters workout a bit so that I did fewer drills and more timed intervals, including several 25 sprints, which I did in a satisfying 18 seconds. I felt great afterward.

Then Saturday afternoon we went to help a friend move from one 2-story apartment to another 2-story apartment. I begged off lifting some of the super-heavy stuff, but I definitely worked hard. Then I came home and cooked two huge pans of a Mexican casserole and no-bake cookies for a church fundraiser this morning. We hosted a lunch to raise money to pay for the teenage girls I work with to go to girls' camp at the end of July.

I woke up this morning aching EVERYwhere. My legs especially, but my back and arms hurt too. But we had a fundraiser to do! So I popped some ibuprofen and left for church, loaded down with food, and tulips for centerpieces.

Of course, nothing can go normally at our church. The hot water heater sprung a leak. So the bishop cut church short by an hour and we hurriedly heated up all the food and set up all the tables and were ready to go by noon. It was a success!

I got home a bit after 2, with the thought of going for a 30-minute walk, since my soreness had faded a bit thanks to ibuprofen and adrenalin. Only it was raining.

So I waited. But once I sat down for a half hour, I realized, hey, I'm sore.

I'm really sore.

I think I need to give my body a break.

So I have, and even though I'm feeling kind of bad about not perfectly finishing my 30-Day Challenge, I think it was the right choice.

Tomorrow, it's back to work, both real work and exercise.

Carb Creep

2011-05-13T16:03:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I feel really frustrated. I hate that I can't seem to lose weight anymore. I'm frustrated by the pain in my heel (and the horror stories I hear from friends who suffer from plantar fasciitis. Wearing shoes in the shower! No more flip flops ever!)

Today is Day 19 of the Fitness Challenge and I haven't missed a day yet, despite having to replan my workouts when I overslept 2 days this week, including this morning.

Actually, that's not quite true. This morning I was just exhausted and made the executive decision to not go swimming. Instead I'm going to do Jillian Michaels's 30-Day Shred when I get home. I sort of forgot I owned that DVD until my friend Donna reminded me about it yesterday. I'll see how Jillian's jumping up and down cardio movements affect my heel. If it hurts too much, I'll just do the rest of the workout without the cardio, and maybe do it twice.

It's beautiful outside and I wish I could walk home, but I know that's just asking for trouble (and pain), so I won't.

I think part of my problem though is that even though I plan to eat low-carb, and I do eat lower carb than most people, I've allowed the simple carbs to creep back in. Brownie bites? Yes, please. Sugar cookies that I baked last night for a church activity tomorrow? Don't mind if I do. I'm logging them, I'm not ignoring them, but I'm still eating them.

So tomorrow I rededicate myself to getting the simple carbs out of my diet. I don't even know why I eat them. OK, I do love a good fudgey brownie, but I haven't had a really GOOD fudgey brownie in awhile. And I don't even really like sugar cookies. Seriously, if I'm going to have carbs, I'd rather it be in veggie form, like roasted broccoli or brussels sprouts (yes, I acknowledge I'm a weirdo).

Tomorrow, I swim and get back to eating the way that feels best!

New Tricks

2011-05-06T12:05:00.003-04:00

Today is Day 12 of my 30-Day Fitness Challenge and I haven't missed a day yet! I'm determined to see this challenge through all 30 days, no matter what busy-ness or messed up schedules come my way.

For instance, I was supposed to wake up and go for a swim this morning. I printed out my workout and had everything ready to go, only I turned off my alarm in my sleep and woke up a half hour too late. I'm planning a lunch walk now (and it's gorgeous outside!), but am a little concerned that the wind will be flipping up my skirt. It is always so windy in Providence and I like flippy skirts. Bad combination.

I mentioned before how our Masters coach told me my elbows weren't high enough (well, me and my entire lane of 5 people). So I've been making a concerted effort to get my elbows high and to modify my stroke. I even went and watched some YouTube videos of some of my favorite Olympic swimmers and sure enough, they have the pointy elbows in freestyle.

So far I've noticed that I'm going the same speed (or faster), but not getting quite so tired. Part of that could be because I'm swimming more and getting into better shape, but I think part of it is not working so hard during my stroke recovery. It still feels kind of awkward, but is getting a little more natural. So exciting to learn something new after 28 years of swimming!

I'm also turning into a complete swimming nerd (Even more than I was before. I've only met one other person who likes watching Olympic swimming as much as I do and she's a swimmer too). A lady in my SparkPeople swimmers group linked to an article at active.com, and now I'm trying not to waste too much time clicking through all of the interesting swimming articles.

I Know I've Said This Before

2011-05-03T16:33:00.003-04:00

I'm a little OCD about food and fitness numbers. During the week I record all my food. During the weekend I record most/some of my food because I'm not tied to a computer like I am during the week. However, I am always aware of what's going in my mouth even if I'm not sitting in front of the computer typing in what I ate.

I also meticulously record all my workouts because it's fun. I'm determined to beat my last SparkPeople streak of 12 days in a row of 30 minutes of exercise.

And like I've said before, I have determined that if calories in/calories out was really all there is to it, I would have lost these cruddy 30-40 pounds AGES ago.

According to the Fitbit charts (ooo, charts!), over the last 30 days alone, if you're talking about calorie deficits, I should have lost 8 pounds. There is something else at work here.

By the way, I have officially decided that if after this 30-Day Fitness Challenge and eating low-carb within my supposed calorie range I still haven't lost any weight (or significant inches), I'm getting my thyroid checked. Because, frankly, if in 21 days I'm still exactly where I was after busting my butt and being fairly meticulous with my eating (with a brownie bite here and there on a weekend), I am going to be really ticked.

Swoon

2011-04-29T14:06:00.002-04:00

I admit it, I am completely caught up in all of the Royal Wedding nonsense. I scheduled my workout this morning so that I would be on the elliptical in time to watch most of the ceremony. Then I made sure to get to work in time to see the kiss(es!) on the Buckingham Palace balcony. Lovely!

Also, hilarious:

However, my left heel is not pleased with me today. Yesterday, I walked home from work (and arrived home a sweaty mess. The humidity is back!). Today I ellipticaled for 40 minutes. Now I'm at work, with my sneakers on since it's Casual Friday, and my foot hurts like crazy. I don't even have to step on it, just the slight pressure of the shoe on my heel whenever I move my foot is causing me to wince every few minutes.

After the rain and gloom of yesterday, today it's sunny and beautiful and I would love to walk home, but I won't. Instead, I'll take the bus and ice my heel when I get home.

The whole heel thing is getting really annoying.

Strong

2011-04-27T13:22:00.003-04:00

I think swimming is making me stronger. I decided to head to the gym this morning for some strength training. For the past several weeks, I've been using my own little weights and body weight exercises at home for strength. Which are good and make me sore (see, sumo squats), but I wanted to try some heavier lifting this morning.

Well, turns out I'm lifting heavier than I was just a month and a half or so ago. I was able to increase the weight on most of the machines and was able to do more reps. I particularly noticed it on the shoulder press. Just a few weeks ago, my shoulders were weak and I couldn't do 3 sets of 10 on the lowest weight. I was lucky if I got 3 sets of 7 or 8. Today I upped the weight and did 2 sets of 10 and 1 of 8 before I hit failure. So pleased!

Day 3: 25 minutes strength training, 12 minutes elliptical.

New 30-Day Fitness Challenge!

2011-04-26T11:47:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I started the second 30-Day Fitness Challenge. I'm excited because several of my Facebook friends (and one SparkPeople friend) have said they are going to join in. I suppose if I can't find a gym buddy, having a few virtual gym buddies is the next best thing.

Day 1: 45 minute swim
Day 2: 60 minute swim (Masters)

Today's Masters swim was definitely challenging. We got to swim a tiny bit of butterfly(yay!), backstroke(yay!) and breaststroke (bleh!). I have never been able to do breaststroke. I always feel like I'm not going anywhere in the water and I find it really boring. I used to race butterfly way, way back in the day, and it would be awesome to be able to do a 50 again without feeling like I'm going to die at the end.

Today I learned that my elbows are too low when I do freestyle. At least I'm not alone - my whole lane had the problem. Our coach called us the low-elbows lane. She showed us how to tweak our stroke a bit and I think it's a good fix for me. One of my problems has always been that when I swim too much, my shoulders ache a lot (especially my right shoulder). I think my low-elbow stroke was putting too much strain on my shoulders. When I modify my stroke and get my elbows higher, I can immediately feel the strain easing off of my shoulders.

Right now I feel totally awkward with the high elbows, but if it winds up improving my technique and my ability to swim longer, fabulous!

This is the benefit of having a coach!

Splint

2011-04-23T10:39:00.004-04:00

Check out this bad boy:

Yesterday morning I woke up and my heel was absolutely killing me. I've been complaining about my heel hurting for a few weeks now and I figured it was about time to do something about it. Also, my arch was starting to hurt too and I figured the longer I wait, the more messed up my foot will get.

So I did some research and discovered there are such things as night splints for plantar fasciitis. They hold the foot in a flexed position so that the muscles and ligaments stay stretched and have an opportunity to heal.

After work, I walked over to CVS and found one. Last night I wore it and this morning I stepped out of bed and onto my left heel with no pain for the first time in weeks. Amazing!

Now that I've been up for a few hours, swimming and walking around, my heel is just starting to hurt again. I'm hoping after a couple weeks of wearing the splint every night maybe I'll be able to walk like a normal person again.

The Next 30 Days

2011-04-22T14:46:00.002-04:00

Surprise, surprise! I'm doing my 30-Day Fitness Challenge again. Day 1 is Monday and I've managed to get several Facebook friends to say they'll join me.

Even though I'm not officially challenged, I had a good 50-minute swim today. One of the ladies in the A group from Masters showed up to do her weekly workout and while I did some kicking laps, I watched her in awe. Even when she's doing drills, she manages to power through the water. Drills slow me down until I'm going about half my usual speed. I think I concentrate too hard on what each arm is doing and forget about actually moving forward.

For instance, Fingertip Drag drill:
Right arm: raise arm out of water, making sure elbow is pointing up while dragging tips of fingers along top of water. Finish stroke and stretch right arm out front with left arm.

Pause.

Pause.

Oh, right.

Left arm: raise arm out of water, making sure elbow is pointing up while dragging tips of fingers along top of water...

Etc.

During this 30-Day Challenge, I'm making a deal with myself that I will not weigh or measure myself at all because, frankly, it's depressing and totally throws me off my game. I've been feeling pretty awesome about myself since I started swimming and purposefully waited a couple weeks into this new routine before I weighed myself.

Well, I stepped on the scale yesterday thinking, surely after my workouts and dedication and eating healthy I have lost a couple of pounds.

Nope.

And then I downward spiraled into a funk and had a really hard time pulling myself out of bed this morning because all I could think was, What's the point?

The POINT is that I feel awesome. OK, maybe my clothes are tighter than I want and I'm not thrilled with how my body looks right now, but when I get in the pool and swim 100 laps I feel tough and strong and I love it. So for the 30 days of this challenge, I'm not going to let the scale burst my bubble of awesomeness.

30-Day Challenge Recap

2011-04-21T12:00:00.002-04:00

Today is Day 30 of my 30 minutes of activity for 30 days challenge. First of all, these 30 days have flown by. Day 1 was Tuesday, March 22 and here we are almost at the end of April.

(I'm kind of ignoring the fact that I have a presentation coming up that I need to submit materials and slides for by May 23. In denial.)

So I've been doing regular updates on Facebook about my activity, and I'm glad I did because it's so easy to go back and look at what I accomplished. I did 30 minutes of activity for days 1 through 12, then was sidelined on days 13 and 14 with what I'm assuming is plantar fasciitis.

Day 15 was my first foray back into swimming in about 10 months.

Day 16, I tried another lunch walk and discovered that walking was really painful. Sigh. Time to lay off the walks.

Days 18 and 20 were busy and resulted in me cramming in 30-40 minutes of cumulative walking. I'll count it for this challenge, but probably not for the next one.

Day 24 I bowed out due to extreme soreness from strength training.

So, wow, looking back, I only really missed 3 days. I'm kind of amazed by that. Challenging myself has been a great motivator. I had to consciously think about when I was going to get in my activity for the day because it wasn't negotiable.

The one negative part of this challenge has been my heel injury. Since it started hurting, I've still managed a couple more walks, but I've paid for them with a lot of pain at night resulting in me hobbling around the house. I ice my heel most evenings after work, but it doesn't seem to be getting better. It's also really frustrating because the weather is getting nice and I would love to be taking lunch walks, in addition to my morning swims.

I think the biggest positive thing I've noticed since I started swimming a couple of weeks ago is that it's so much easier to wake up in the morning. I was whining and complaining early in the challenge about being relegated to lunch walks because I could NOT get up in the morning. It's amazing how paying for Masters swimming will get me up in the morning. Also, now that I have the swimming bug again, I'm excited about my workouts. So now that I've been exercising for reals for a couple of weeks, I need less sleep and I'm waking up earlier. Nice!

Yogging?

2011-04-18T13:29:00.002-04:00

Today, Jason went jogging for the first time in awhile. (As he likes to say, he ran a 5K last May, and retired undefeated.) I really like it when he's active too because he motivates me. I've always been the one who works out, so how much of a loser am I if I don't get in a workout, and then he emails me crowing about running 3 miles?

(Did I mention swimming brings out my competitive side?)

We had a busy Saturday so I was up bright and early to swim for 55 minutes. Yesterday I got in a 30-minute strength training session (sumo squats, we meet again), and this morning I swam for 45 minutes.

My 30 Day Fitness Challenge ends on Thursday, and I solicited feedback on Facebook as to whether I should do it again. One friend suggested I just make it a 60 Day Challenge now, but I would really like to get in a perfect 30 days so I'm going to shoot for that. I'll give a final report about this challenge on Thursday, then Friday is Day 1 of the next challenge. Feel free to join in!

Soreness

2011-04-15T10:46:00.003-04:00

Have you ever done sumo squats? I think I need to do those on a regular basis because there may be no better way to tone up my inner thigh muscles. I woke up yesterday morning with amazingly sore inner thighs. That makes for some interesting walking. And sitting down. Did you know you extensively use your inner thigh muscles to sit down? So I didn't work out yesterday because walking was kind of a struggle.

This morning, I argued with myself for about 10 minutes, then finally got up and went for a swim. I'm so glad I did. I'm still sore from the squats (and the dumbbell flys), but it became more bearable after swimming a few laps, and I think it was good to stretch out my muscles a bit.

The Y's triathlon team still had their workout written on the white board at one end of the pool, so I decided to do it (though I had to cut it short a bit since I ran out of time). I warmed up and then did:

100 (R :15)
200 (R :20)
300 (R :30)
400 (R :40)
300 (R: 30)
200 (R :20)
100

Only, I actually ended after the second 300, and did the last 12 laps as a cooldown combo with kicking and swimming. All told, I did 88 laps, or 2200 yards in 45 minutes, which I'm happy with considering both my warm-up and cooldown included some kicking.

Not-So-Low-Carb

2011-04-13T13:27:00.004-04:00

The last, oh, 18 hours haven't been so great on the low-carb front. Last night I met a friend for a movie and got myself a tub of popcorn. That wasn't quite my intention when we decided to go, it's just I met her right after work and didn't plan well AT ALL. If I had, I would have brought some nuts or cheese or something to hold me until I got home and could have another snack. Instead, I showed up at the theater famished with nothing to choose from except popcorn and candy.

However, I would like to note that my net carbs yesterday were still 67 g, meaning that up until the popcorn, I was doing stellar.

Today it's raining and we got pizza for the office. This is actually special fancy pizza with a yummy multi-grain crust and organic, local ingredients. So not the worst thing in the world, but still full of carbs and grains.

We used to get pizza almost every time there was a really crummy rainy day (like today), but I've been deflecting our assistant's pizza proposals for weeks now. I think this is probably the 4th or 5th time she's recently suggested it and I felt kind of mean saying "no" again. Also, it sounded good.

Oh well. I can live with it. Though I'm already feeling that carbalicious mid-afternoon slump kicking in. My eyes are droopy and my head is foggy.

As for exercise, this is Day 23 of my Challenge and I got in my 30 minutes first thing with some strength training, which I've been intending to add back to my routine. The other day I was reminded that strength training is so important to muscle gain and weight loss. See, my weight was at a pretty good place when we went to Hawaii with Jason's family in April 2010, and I found myself wondering what exactly I was doing with my workouts and food a year ago.

Since I've been (obsessively) charting my calories and workouts for a few years now, I could go back to March and April of 2010 on SparkPeople and see what I was doing. The joys of SparkPeople! If you too love numbers and stats and charts created with those numbers and stats, then SparkPeople is for you. (Tell them Kellyim referred you)

First, my workouts. For one, I was swimming pretty regularly (that always seems to be key for me). Also, I was doing a bit of elliptical now and then, walking often (darn this left heel!) and strength training at least twice a week.

As for food, I was doing pretty much what I'm doing right now - eating whole foods, restricting grains and sugar, eating around 50-75 g net carbs per day.

I hadn't hit my arbitrary self-imposed goal weight a year ago, but I remember feeling pretty good and having a lot of energy. So it's nice to have that validation that my instincts are right and I'm back to doing what I know works for me.

Masters Morning

2011-04-12T14:28:00.002-04:00

This morning was the 2nd Masters swimming workout. There were actually probably 6 fewer people than at the last workout, which meant the lanes weren't quite so crowded. Also, the coach didn't make us get in the assigned lanes this week, so I wound up swimming with the same people as last week, which worked fine (though I still think that one girl should be bumped up to the B level. She was on my heels the entire time. Meanwhile I was keeping pace with the other people in the lane.)

I wish I didn't have to jump out of the pool right at 7:30 to get ready for work because today wasn't much of a workout. We just did a ton of drill 50s. All sorts of drills.

The thing about drills are, they kind of make you feel like a total goober. Yes, thank you, I KNOW I'm not supposed to slap the water with my open palm, or radically rotate my hips every time I take a stroke. It's a drill. I was fine today when everyone was doing all the crazy body contortions, but I admit to feeling a little self-conscious on Saturday morning when I was doing the drills on my own.

It's interesting how swimming theory has changed since I learned how to swim in the early 80s. Not that it's changed that much, but enough that I'm modifying my stroke a bit and really concentrating on making my technique better. Which is exactly why I joined Masters, so hooray for getting my money's worth.

I predict I will be an even bigger swimming nerd when the next Summer Olympics roll around, scrutinizing everyone's technique and such.

Level D? Psssh!

2011-04-11T14:05:00.002-04:00

Saturday morning I went to the pool to do the workout the Masters coach emailed us. I took the Level C workout with me, and I did it! It was challenging, for sure, but I did it. I love having the planned workouts to do because they definitely push me harder than I would push myself.

Yesterday was an inactive day, sadly, though I suppose I did walk about a half hour downtown with Jason. Today I was going to go to the gym, but didn't wake up in time again. Monday mornings are always rough for me (because I'm such a hard partier, apparently). Since I don't have anything planned for dinner, after work I'm going to walk to Whole Foods, pick up some hot bar for our dinner, then walk up to the bus stop. That should take at least 30 minutes. Not ideal for my heels, but I can't stop living, right?

I wondered aloud to Jason yesterday how my heels are supposed to heal when I still have to, you know, walk. OK, maybe I can stop with the official "taking walks" so much, but I still have to walk during my day. Anyone with plantar fasciitis who can tell me how long it takes for the heels to stop hurting?

Day 18: Inadvertent Rest Day

2011-04-08T22:06:00.002-04:00

So I didn't actually plan for exercise today because I knew it was going to be a busy day. Early morning meeting in Boston, followed by a full day of work, followed by a Providence Bruins hockey game.

Note: It's kind of awesome living in the town that feeds into the major sports team town. We can go see the Pawtucket Red Sox or the Providence Bruins for a fraction of what it costs to go see those other Red Sox and Bruins.

Anyway, the day started out amazingly when I woke up 20 minutes before the train to Boston left Providence. And it takes 15 minutes to get to the station. So I wound up driving up to Boston and spending about 3 hours in traffic today. Drag.

I suppose I can count the walk from work to the hockey game and back. It takes about 15 minutes each way. 15 + 15 = 30, right? So there's my 30 minutes of activity, no matter how lame.

Sadly, it was enough to make my heel ache a lot, despite making sure to wear good supportive shoes. I'm following coolrunning.com's advice and icing it right now.

Until this heals I think I need one of those hover loungers like in Wall-E to cart me around, with periodic drop-offs at the pool.

Oo, Le Creuset!

2011-04-07T16:08:00.002-04:00

Anne Marie, aka Cheeseslave, is giving away a Le Creuset baking dish this month. So I'm entering to win (and so can you, though I want to win. Just saying.)

Swimming and Feet

2011-04-07T12:02:00.000-04:00

Went for my swim this morning and got 4 more lengths in my 20-minute trial than I did on Tuesday. Still not nearly as fast as I want to be, but solidly in the C range. So at least I proved that to myself, which makes me feel better.

Still shooting for A, though.

My triceps are screaming at me to cut it out. Sorry, triceps, you will be defined again! Swimming gives me a muscular upper back and totally cut triceps. Looking forward to getting those back.

I am not loving my sore left heel today. I paid for yesterday's lunch walk this morning when I got out of bed and stepped on my left foot. It's even a bit achy as I'm just sitting here at my desk typing, not putting any weight on it at all. I guess I won't be getting 10,000 steps per day again for at least a week while I let my foot rest for a bit.

Of course, today it's lovely and warm and sunny outside and a perfect day for a lunch walk.

You know what sunny days like this make me wish we had in New England? Outdoor pools. I think that's what I miss most about Tucson.

Oh, and my relatives.

And Mexican food.

D?!

2011-04-06T09:10:00.002-04:00

Our coach sent out the weekly workouts yesterday afternoon with our official lane assignment for the upcoming practices. I got bumped down to Level D! I was fuming to Jason about it last night and he said I need to stop being so polite with the other people in the lane and not let them pass or slow down so that I don't pass them. He may be right.

I looked at the workouts and the D one is SO SLOW. I use the clock a lot when I'm doing my own workouts, so I know my speeds and I definitely don't need intervals of 2 minutes and 20 seconds for 100s. I'm going to do the C workout this week, and tomorrow morning I'm going to do that 20-minute swim on my own so I know my real pacing.

I was also kind of surprised that the coach bumped this other new girl down into D with me. Honestly, if anything, I thought she should have been moved up to B. I guess she and I will be frustrated in the D lane together.

Of course, it may be more about numbers. There are only 5 lanes and 25 people to spread out over those 5 lanes.

Yesterday was long and late so I didn't get up for my swim this morning. Now, I wish I had. I'm a little antsy and I'm craving a nice swim. One day and I'm already addicted to the endorphins. I get a nice buzz when I swim that I just don't get with most other activities. The only other thing that is a guaranteed shot of endorphins for me is doing HIIT on the elliptical. But swimming is more fun, and less disgustingly sweaty.

Masters Swimming

2011-04-05T11:25:00.003-04:00

This morning was my first Masters swimming workout. First of all, why do I always forget how great swimming makes me feel? Seriously, I think I've made that comment no less than 5 times on this blog, yet it always feels like a new revelation every time. Just 40 minutes of swimming gives me such a great endorphin buzz.

I can already tell that having a coach and swimming with other people at about my same level (and better) is going to push me much harder than I would push myself. We practice as a group on Tuesday mornings for an hour, then during the week our coach sends us a workout to print out and do on our own time, based on our skill level.

We did a 20-minute swim this morning so the coach could get an idea of our pacing and place us in the appropriate level. I think my result was a little skewed, since there were 5 people in my lane and I stopped a couple of times because either someone needed to pass me, or I needed to wait a few seconds so that I wasn't on someone's heels the entire length of the pool. I'm going to do another 20-minute swim myself either tomorrow or Thursday morning so that I get a real idea of my pace, without any interruptions.

The workouts are for Level A through Level E, with A being the fastest. Right now I'm in Level C, which I think isn't so bad considering I haven't even been in the pool for about 9 months (or more). Our coach sends all the workouts to everyone, so if I want to push myself, I can try a B or an A workout during the week. Which I already know I'm totally going to do. The competitive swimmer in me wants to be in the A group!

In most aspects of life, I'm not really that competitive. I mean, I like to win as much as the next person, but I'm ok with not being the best of the best. Usually. The difference is, I know I'm a good swimmer. I know this is something I can do well, so I actually do want to be the best. I'm not saying I'll get there, but I'm definitely going to push myself.

Injured. Again.

2011-04-03T10:00:00.001-04:00

Every time I start running again, I get injured. Every. Single. Time.

This is just getting annoying. It's not like I'm doing excessive amounts of training here. All I'm doing is going for walks every day, peppered with an occasional jog totaling about 8 minutes of running. I'm not training for some long-distance race. I'm not even breaking a sweat most days when I'm out for my walks.

And still I manage to get injured.

So. Frustrating!

It's always different, though. First it was my ankles. Then my IT band. This time I'm about 99.9% sure I have plantar fasciitis. I've had pain since I did my first jog a couple weeks ago, but after yesterday's jog it's just excruciating. I'm hobbling so much that Jason (who HATES doctors) is saying maybe I should go to the doctor.

So let's look at the symptoms, courtesy of coolrunning.com (the people who gave you the Couch to 5K program):

1. This is among the most common of foot injuries and is signaled by pain on the front of the heel or all along the arch.
Not so much the arch, but my left heel sure hurts a lot.

2. You probably have a lot of pain when you first get out of bed -- it's probably murder just to walk out of your bedroom.
Check.

3. Ditto on standing up after a long time of being seated.
Double check.

4. To make sure it's plantar fasciitis, as opposed to a heel spur (see below), press your thumb up hard on the middle of your heel. If you feel pain, it's plantar fasciitis.
Ow!

Likely Causes:
"In the ideal foot with the ideal stride, your weight during your stride rolls efficiently from your heel, through your arch, and off of the ball of your foot. The arch flattens a little bit to absorb your weight and then springs back. Plantar fasciitis is the all too common result of your weight moving improperly through your arch so that it is overstretched. In more extreme cases, the arch loses its flexibility altogether so that it no longer springs back.
Considering I have the flattest feet on the planet, I'm thinking this might be my problem.

The injury is aggravated, like most injuries, by running too much.
"Too much" in my case apparently means once. For 8 minutes.

Remedies:
First, ease off on the miles and cut out the hills and speedwork.
Of course, it makes you feel like less of a total running loser if you're actually doing miles and hills and speedwork to begin with. I am a total running loser.

Give it ice immediately after running -- ten minutes on ice, ten minutes off, and repeat. Take anti-inflammatories to reduce the swelling.
Noted. Hello, ibuprofen!

For that early-morning pain, avoid getting out of bed barefoot. Put on some thick socks or slippers first.
Yes, I've found stepping immediately into my squishy shearling slippers helps me not to collapse when I step on my left heel first thing in the morning.

I think I may just need to accept the fact that my body does NOT want me to be a runner. Or even an excessive walker. Maybe it's time to concentrate on that strength training...

Challenges

2011-04-02T16:11:00.002-04:00

The last time I updated my fitness challenge on here was on Day 6. Today is Day 12 and I'm still plugging along, and haven't missed a day yet (though I had a couple of close calls). Here's my report:

Day 7: 45-minute lunch walk
Day 8: 50-minute lunch walk
Day 9: 30-minute walk (busy day at work with a lunch meeting, but I managed to sneak out for a bit mid-afternoon)
Day 10: 35-minute walk partway home in the freezing rain as the Nor'easter rolled in.
Day 11: 3-mile walk home from work

Today (ie, Day 12) I talked Jason into doing a walk/jog with me down the path this morning. It's so nice to have someone to go with, though I know my short stubby legs are holding him back. He's very sweet to run with me. He also pushed me to do 3 extra minutes of running, which was great.

Well, the running wasn't great, but the fact that we did it was. The running kind of sucked, if I'm going to be honest.

Anyway, I'm almost halfway through the fitness challenge and I'm going strong. The extra hours of daylight over the last couple of weeks have definitely helped. This coming week is the week I need to step it up a notch. Masters swimming starts Tuesday, and I'm going to make a better effort to get up in the mornings and go for a run, or do some strength training. I may still go for a lunch walk most days, but I think that needs to be on the side, rather than being my main exercise.

As for the low-carb, I've been fudging a bit here and there. For instance, I bought some Newman's dark chocolate caramel cups and I allowed myself to eat them over three days this week (there are 3 caramel cups per package). We're going over to some friends' house tonight where the husband, who is from Spain, is making us paella. Yum! I'm not turning that down, despite the carbs.

I definitely think I'm sticking to a good 80/20 balance, like Mark at Mark's Daily Apple espouses. Basically the idea is to eat on plan (whatever your plan is) 80% of the time, allowing for some fudging the other 20%. Sounds reasonable, right? I think I could even claim 85/15 for this month, honestly and I'm pleased with that.

Swim

2011-03-29T09:00:00.004-04:00

I think it's about time for me to swim again. Jason and I know a guy in Cambridge who swims with a Masters team up there. He was talking about his latest meet on Facebook, and I felt kind of jealous. I've thought about joining a Masters team for years, but never really looked into it too seriously. And when I did it seemed like practices were a bit too far away and at somewhat inconvenient times.

That is until I went online a couple of weeks ago and discovered that they just started a Masters swimming program at my Y. I noticed they only practice 1 day a week for now, and I thought to myself, "I could totally do 1 day a week." Even if it's a total butt-kicking (which it probably will be), I can do 1 day a week of anything.

So starting next Tuesday, I'm doing Masters swimming! I'm excited (and a little intimidated).

Jason tells me he'll go to all my meets (when/if I actually start competing). He's so supportive.

I Heart Sun!

2011-03-28T14:16:00.005-04:00

For the past two weeks it has been pretty gloomy around here, but the last couple of days have been full of lovely sunshine. And wind. Providence isn't allowed to have sunshine without wind, it seems. I will find that much more obnoxious when it gets warmer and I'm trying to wear flippy skirts without the benefit of a heavy winter coat weighing them down.

This weekend I went on a couple of long walks on the path near my house. I'm so glad I started this challenge because otherwise I would have sat on my bum watching Firefly all of yesterday afternoon. Jason was gone and I wanted something fun to watch. I forgot how engrossing that show is. I watched the pilot, then dragged myself off the couch and headed to the path.

When I got home, I did some cleaning and planted some tulip bulbs. They actually wintered in our garage, instead of in the ground, but I planted them in some pots yesterday and am hoping maybe they might come up. If not, I'll just dig them up and plant them in the yard next Fall.

I'm really excited because all of the seeds I planted a few weeks ago have sprouted. This year I'm growing zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and peas. I also started some sage. My rosemary plant is looking a little sad so as soon as it's warm enough, I'll be putting it outside to soak in the sun. Even though I have it in a sunny spot inside, it's still too cold in the house for the rosemary to do well (as we keep the thermostat low in an effort to not go completely broke over heating costs).

Days 1-4: Success

2011-03-25T14:48:00.003-04:00

I've been bad about keeping up on here, but suffice it to say, I have rocked the first 4 days of my challenge. Well, "rocked" might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but I've fulfilled the challenges I set for myself.

30 Days of Low-Carb
Day 1: 52 g net carbs
Day 2: 67 g net carbs
Day 3: 58 g net carbs
Day 4: Still eating, but since I only have 14 g net carbs right now (post-lunch), I figure unless I go crazy tonight, my carbs will be pretty low

30 Days of 30 Minutes of Activity
Day 1: 45 minute lunch walk
Day 2: 60 minute lunch walk
Day 3: 45 minute lunch walk
Day 4: 50 minute lunch walk + I'll probably walk the 3 miles home from work.

What's with the lunch walks, you might ask? Well, I've been feeling super sleepy in the mornings and getting up to go to the gym has felt impossible. Heck, getting up to arrive at work on time has been nothing short of miraculous. The whole theory behind this challenge is that something is better than nothing. So I'm doing something.

Day 1 Fail - Let's Try Again Tomorrow

2011-03-21T16:39:00.003-04:00

So this morning didn't work out with the strength training class thing. I don't mean this to be a blog of excuses, but I was really, REALLY sore after my walk/jog on Saturday. By Saturday afternoon, my heels were killing me. Basically it felt like the bottoms of both of my heels (especially my left heel) were covered in bruises and every step was excruciatingly painful.

I swear, every time I start running, a different body part hurts. At least it keeps recovery interesting.

Today my heels feel a lot better, but my thighs and knees are sore. Plus, Jason's sister, who was in town this past week, left today and the three of us were up late last night. I still gamely set my alarm, thinking I could go for a walk, but I was so exhausted this morning that it didn't happen.

So, ok, I figured I could do a lunch walk. Only it's been snowing/sleeting/raining ALL DAY. Yeah, it was almost 70 and sunny on Friday.

Not fair, Providence. Not fair.

I've made the executive decision to postpone the fitness challenge start date to tomorrow. However, the food is going well today, so at least there's that.

In related news, my jeans are really tight. I hate it.

Spring In My Step

2011-03-19T15:38:00.002-04:00

Rather than be lazy until I restart my challenge on Monday, I've decided to begin getting in the habit of being active every day. Yesterday I had an early morning meeting in Boston, and instead of taking the T from South Station after I got off the commuter rail, I walked the mile or so to the meeting, then back to the train station after the meeting. It's a nice way to get over my sleepy head from the hour-long train ride up from Providence.

This morning I got up early (well, early for a Saturday) and hit the trail near my house. I did the Week 1 workout for Couch to 5K down the trail, then briskly walked back. I honestly am not sure if I'm going to complete the whole Couch to 5K program (since I haven't managed to do it yet), but the first few weeks of workouts are actually a good way to get in some intervals. According to Fitbit, I wind up running at about 6 mph, so that's not too bad. And for how hard I'm breathing after each 1-minute jog, you would think I was doing sprints.

I came home to some happy purple crocuses in our front yard that someone planted who knows when. I love bulbs that come up every Spring!

Monday morning my plan is to head to the gym and take that strength training class that I took once a long, long time ago. It kicked my butt then, so I have a feeling I will be in a lot of pain come Tuesday. But I think I need someone telling me what to do, and a whole class full of peer pressure to really push myself with the strength training.

It's On!

2011-03-17T10:32:00.003-04:00

Today it feels like Spring and I love it!

It also reminds me that Summer is around the corner and that I would really like to go to the beach with the Young Women (the teenage girls I work with at church) like I promised them and not feel so unbearably self-conscious about my thighs in my swimsuit. I accept that my thighs will always be big, but there is no reason to accept the amount of fat currently on them. I need to cut the carbs, cut the flour and sugar, and up my strength training. I need to get back into my workout routine pronto, and not half-a$$ it all like I've been doing for the past few months.

My cousin Amy reposted someone's great blog post today about being honest with yourself. It was a good thing for me to read today.

Monday I'm restarting my 30 Day Challenges. Actually, I'm planning to go to the gym on Saturday morning too, but I'll officially start Monday. (Can't go to the gym tomorrow morning because of an early-morning meeting in Boston.)

On Monday I will begin 30 days of:
- Low-carb: under 100 g net carbs per day, though shooting for between 50-75 g. NO white flour or sugar.
- 30 minutes of activity every day.

It's sunny, the days are longer, and I'm feeling pumped!

Sleepy

2011-03-16T12:49:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I did my first active thing in a few weeks and I went for a 50-minute lunchtime walk. Even with that, I didn't quite hit 10,000 steps for the day. Hi, my job isn't just sedentary, it's SUPER sedentary!

I planned to get up this morning and had grand visions of a walk/jog down the path near my house. Only I could not get up. Starting last week, I have been completely unable to get up before 7 AM, even if I get to bed by 10:30 or 11. I have a very bad habit of hitting snooze in my sleep and not even realizing the alarm has gone off until after 3 or 4 10-minute snoozes. The days when the alarm actually wakes me up, it usually wind up ripping me from some intense dream and the grogginess makes it impossible to get up.

Usually I need less sleep and wake up more easily when I'm exercising regularly, but in order to exercise regularly, I have to actually wake up. Vicious circle.

I'm planning to go for a walk in a bit to run an errand if the rain will ever let up, so that will have to count as my activity for the day since I'm busy tonight.

Seriously, how does anyone work out regularly after work? I don't get out of the office until 6:30 or so, and then there is ALWAYS something going on in the evening. This is why if the workout doesn't happen in the morning (or on my lunch hour) it's not happening.

I Keep Getting Sidetracked

2011-03-11T14:20:00.003-05:00

I am the queen of good intentions it seems, but then it all gets blown out of the water. I was merrily chugging along with my good eating and daily activity, then I got sick, which I wrote about. Cold + flu. Good times. I can't remember the last time I got the flu, but it knocked me out for that entire week.

Last week, my cousin George passed away. He was a year younger than me and though we weren't really close, I have a lot of childhood memories with him and his younger brother, Greg. We lived in the same town when we were very small, and our parents often tried to time our summer visits to the grandparents so that the three of us had some overlapping time. I learned during Greg's eulogy that the very first time I went to my grandpa's camp in the Everglades, was also their first trip there.

It was a tragic accident and very sad. Jason and I drove the 14 hours to Tennessee to be with my extended family and I am so very glad we did. I think it meant a lot to my aunt, my mom's little sister, and it was good to be with family. It was also good to be at the funeral, which made the whole thing more real. Though, I had one weird moment at my aunt's house when Greg walked up the stairs into the living room with Geoff, the other brother, behind him. For just a split second, I expected George to be there too. If I was having flashes like that after not seeing him for so long, I can't imagine how it must feel for those who were around him every day, especially his wife.

Of course, everything took a back seat to that and my food choices were completely out of whack. One thing I have to say for the South, folks take care of you when there's a tragedy.* My aunt and uncle's house, and George's house were overflowing with food from neighbors, friends and co-workers. So many people showed up to give their words of condolences and to just love my family. It was wonderful to see.

* To be fair, I've never experienced a tragedy in the North, so it might be just the same. But I love that Southern hospitality.

So now we're back and I'm trying to get on a good schedule again. This week has been (and continues to be) really busy with work, church and personal commitments. I've been getting to bed by 10:30 or 11, but sleeping solid through until 7 and feeling like I could use some more sleep. My eating is ok, not great, but not horrible either. I'm putting off restarting exercise until Monday.

I need to figure out a way to not get sidetracked when life happens. It's so easy to let my good habits fly out the window at any opportunity.

Monday, Monday

2011-02-28T14:14:00.003-05:00

Boy, it is DREARY in Rhode Island today and I almost wiped out a couple of times this morning when I walked out of the house to a world glazed in ice. I'm feeling better and thought I might take a lunchtime walk, but the weather nixed that idea.

So, yeah, so much for my 30 Day Fitness Challenge. Getting sick right in the middle of the month put a big snag in my plans. I'm thinking about starting over again tomorrow for the month of March.

I also didn't keep up the low-carb very well over the past week and a half. OK, really, I didn't keep up the low carb AT ALL. Last Tuesday I probably ate (or kept down) about 300 calories, if that. Jason bought me some saltines on his way home from choir practice Tuesday night and I just ate those on Wednesday. The next couple of days, I kept the food bland and sparse because my stomach was still pretty wonky.

Then we had a crazy weekend of church activities. I spent all day Saturday shopping and cleaning in anticipation of having a bunch of girls at my house and feeding them. Saturday night we drove the youth up to Weston, MA for a meeting, then the girls came back to my house for a sleepover. Jason and I fell asleep at about 1:30 or 2, but the girls told me they stayed up until almost 4. The next morning, we were out the door by 8:15 to get everyone to a meeting in Groton, CT (I got muffins and fruit for everyone to eat on the way). There was much driving this weekend. Also, teenage girls are exhausting. And ours are actually pretty low-key.

We went to our bishop's house for a luncheon after the meeting and I was famished. His wife (hi, Deb!) knows I'm doing low-carb and made a comment to me about it, and I completely waved her off. I was famished by the time we arrived and while I could have munched some cold cuts, cheese and veggies, instead I ate a big sandwich plus dessert.

Jason and I got home yesterday afternoon and he immediately fell asleep. I made a valiant effort to watch a mystery I've had in the Netflix streaming queue for awhile, but only got about 15 minutes in before I was asleep too. We both woke up at about 7:30 and proceeded to eat leftover stew, watch the Oscars and play a board game. Oh, and I ate some Oreos that I had bought the girls.

I woke up this morning feeling like I could really use a weekend right about now. Today is a new dawn for my personal low-carb movement. I am convinced that my malaise is equal parts being sick, too many carbs, and not enough sleep. Tonight I am looking forward to getting to bed early.

Mental Health

2011-02-23T13:08:00.002-05:00

I'm taking another day off of work today because as long as I'm sitting down, I'm ok, but I start feeling very woozy when I stand up and I didn't want to try to navigate the bus and the office feeling like this. The good news is, today I don't feel the need to sleep all day and I can actually concentrate enough to do some work. Yesterday was a lost day.

Speaking of lost days... On Sunday, Jason and I went over to the home of some friends of mine for a visit. They are in Virginia temporarily, preparing for a move to India, so while we were visiting one set of friends, I figured I should try to see this other set, since who knows when I'll have the chance to see them again. We spent a lot of time reminiscing about people we knew and things we did when we all lived in Chicago.

Only here's the thing - I don't remember a lot of it. Those 3 years in Chicago are a haze in large part. I remember some things, but other things are just a blank.

Same goes for the first year and a half of law school.

Midway through my 2nd year of law school, I started taking anti-depressants, and my world changed. Almost 2 weeks to the day after I started taking the pills, a switch clicked on in my brain and suddenly I was all there again. There's really no way to express how huge of a shift this was. After probably 5 years of living in a haze, the fog lifted. I understood what was going on. I actually felt happy. I was able to move on from a bad relationship.

I know that in large part Jason doesn't understand depression. I think he sees anti-depressants as a crutch, or, at best, a placebo. But every so often he gets a small view into what my world was like. Sunday night was one of those moments. He commented to me on the way home how weird it was that I didn't remember anything, and I told him that's what depression does. I was physically there, but mentally I was only partially there.

Part of the reason why I want to be as physically healthy as possible is because I don't want to be on anti-depressants forever, especially as Jason and I talk about starting a family. So I'm working on upping my endorphins and decreasing the meds.

On the Other Hand...

2011-02-23T07:33:00.000-05:00

...maybe I just have the flu.

Side Effects

2011-02-22T14:53:00.002-05:00

I was going to save this post to the end of the month, but since I'm home from work sick today, I thought I would go ahead and write it. Yes, I'm sick, and this is after I was just thinking to myself last week that it had been awhile since I've been sick and how thrilled I was about that. I guess I got too cocky.

Basically, I just wanted to write about how I've been feeling while eating low carb and concentrating on activity. Overall, it's been great. I have a lot of energy, and never experience the mid-afternoon slump, which tells me I'm doing well at keeping my blood sugar pretty constant over the course of the day. Also, I haven't had a migraine in weeks. I had been popping a migraine pill or two at least once a week for several months now. So much so that Jason had commented on how I was becoming a Maxalt addict. Since starting to eat low-carb, I haven't had one migraine. I know that doesn't prove cause and effect, but I'm willing to stay away from the carbs even if there is just a slight connection to my weekly debilitating headaches.

Now, let's contrast that with how I've felt when I've indulged a bit over the last few weeks. (Warning: following are minor discussions of some basic bodily functions.) First, was Sunday before last when I had a small piece of chocolate cake and some frosting straight from the mixing bowl. That night and part of the next day, I felt like my stomach had expanded about 4 sizes as my insides churned with gas. Yuck! Again, not proof of cause and effect (can you tell I've been married to a scientist for 3 years?), but interesting to note.

Then we have today. This weekend was not a low-carb weekend. We visited some friends in Virginia and it's hard when you're staying in someone's home to say "No thanks" over and over, plus try to make your own food. Kind of rude, actually. Also, I wasn't able to be very active, partly because we were spending time with the friends and partly because I started getting a cold on Friday.

Saturday and Sunday weren't too bad food-wise, but yesterday on the drive home I just let all my standards fly out the window. The day started with a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats. Then, Jason really wanted to stop at this sandwich place in Pennsylvania, so we did and I had a 6-inch sub and onion rings. Then came the afternoon McFlurry snack. Finally, we topped off the day with pizza.

I know!

Guess who woke up this morning feeling absolutely rotten? I really don't think this was related to my cold (which continues to improve). Basically, I felt like I had food poisoning, with all the attendant pleasantness. I called in sick to work and slept until 1. Maybe it was completely unrelated. But maybe it was related to all the crap I ate yesterday. I don't really want to do another experiment to find out. Let's just say it's good motivation to eat healthy.

New Podcast!

2011-02-18T12:41:00.003-05:00

I love discovering new and interesting podcasts to entertain me while I'm lifting weights or going for walks. (Not for the elliptical, though. I need some good pumping music to stay motivated for that.)

I just started listening to Latest in Paleo, and each episode is chock full of interesting news tidbits and other information gleaned from around the internets about Paleo and low-carb living.

Yesterday, thanks to Latest in Paleo, I listened to the audio of a 2002 panel discussion between Gary Taubes, Dean Ornish, Barbara [something] from the American Heart Association, and Dr. Mehmet Oz. Here's the first segment (the rest are on youtube):

The discussion is very interesting, but also incredibly frustrating to listen to. Dean Ornish and the AHA lady spout the typical low-fat, whole grains line and equate low-carb to "eating pork rinds" over and over. I'm just about to finish Gary Taubes's new book, and I'm really wondering if the low-fat people have really looked into the science of insulin production and fat storage at all. This panel happened right after Taubes's New York Times article, and since then many people have jumped on the low-carb bandwagon, more studies have been done and Taubes even succeeded in getting praise from the revered Dr. Andrew Weil.

The only downside to the video is Gary Taubes comes across as a bit petullant at times, but I chalk that up to him getting frustrated too.

Swollen

2011-02-18T09:01:00.002-05:00

In between yesterday morning and this morning, I gained 3 pounds and added back that inch to my waist. TOM anyone? I know I'm oversharing, but I can really feel the PMS bloating this month. Actually, by yesterday afternoon suddenly my stomach didn't feel as flat as it had in the morning.

I planned to go to the gym this morning, but decided it would be better to walk to work because I needed to throw a bunch of stuff together for our weekend road trip. Well, I only got a mile into the walk before my complete and utter exhaustion and aching legs convinced me to stop and get on the bus instead.

Bleh, sometimes being a woman is a total drag.

On Track

2011-02-17T10:08:00.003-05:00

First, an update about the raw macaroons. I wanted to decrease the carbs in each cookie (because I keep grabbing them out of the fridge to pop in my mouth every time I walk by) so I halved the maple syrup from 1/4 cup to 1/8 cup. To compensate on the liquid, I upped the coconut oil, but more fat isn't a bad thing. They still taste great and yummy and, most importantly, coconutty.

My food and my exercise are on track except for a couple little food slip ups, which I actually allowed and accounted for in SparkPeople and weren't deadly by any stretch of the imagination. On Sunday I baked a cake for one of the teenage girls I work with at church. I can take or leave cake, frankly, but I love icing. I had a small piece of cake with everyone else, but I also had a few finger swipes of icing out of the mixing bowl. And, actually, I paid for it in how I felt later.

I've started writing down the physical changes I've noticed so far this month and am planning a month-end recap. Suffice it to say, there have been some interesting physical effects of removing grains and sugar from my diet.

On Valentine's Day we got some See's Candies in the mail from Jason's parents and I totally ate a piece of toffee (my favorite). It was worth it to me and was a small enough piece that I was satisfied without feeling yucky afterward.

I've exercised in some form every day since February 7th, which according to SparkPeople is a new continuous record for me. The one thing I need to do is start adding some intervals in the elliptical, but they're so painful. I have to remind myself how awesome I feel afterward and push through it. Seriously, the endorphins following a HIIT workout are out of this world!

This morning I did a quick weigh and measure just to see where I am. I weigh the same, but according to the measuring tape, my waist has decreased by an inch! An inch in a week! Or less than a week, actually. I'll take it!

Cookies!

2011-02-15T13:21:00.003-05:00

No, seriously, COOKIES! That I can eat without blowing my food plan!

I have 2 recipes for you. One is for pumpkin cookies from Everyday Paleo and the other is for raw macaroons courtesy of Charlotte at The Great Fitness Experiment (whose name I will forever praise because of these cookies).

Paleo Pumpkin Cookies

1 C. almond meal
1/2 C. finely chopped pecans (the original recipe calls for walnuts, but I'm not a big walnut fan and I LOVE pecans)
1/2 t. baking soda
1 T. cinnamon
1 egg
1 C. cooked and mashed pumpkin, sweet potato or butternut squash (I used pumpkin and it still tasted like Thanksgiving sweet potatoes. Go figure.)
1/4 C. coconut milk
2-4 T. maple syrup (I admit it, I used all 4. I could see using less if I used sweet potatoes or a sweet squash instead of pumpkin.)

Preheat oven to 400. In a mixing bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients. In another small mixing bowl whick together the egg, coconut milk, and maple syrup. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the mashed sweet potato/pumpkin/squash to the dough and mix well. Grease a baking sheet (or use a Silpat) and scoop about one heaping tablespoon per cookie onto the baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Makes approximately 15 cookies.

Raw Macaroons

2 C. raw, unsweetened coconut
1/2 C. almond meal
1/4 C. maple syrup
1/4 C. coconut oil (the recipe called for coconut butter, but I didn't have any. Coconut oil works great, though maybe the cookies would have a bit more structural integrity when they get warmer with the coconut butter. Must experiment (and make more cookies))
1/8 t. vanilla
pinch salt

Mix everything together, roll into balls and chill in refrigerator for a half hour or longer. (Try not to eat all the dough right then and there when you give it a little taste.) Made about 30.

The macaroons taste like heaven. And I discovered this morning that a couple of them are a great little pre-workout snack.

Progress!

2011-02-12T08:14:00.003-05:00

Saturday is weighing and measuring day for me. So guess what? It's working!

This week I lost 3.4 pounds. I also lost a 1/4 inch off my waist and a 1/4 inch off each of my calves. Yay!

I'm just so thrilled to finally see things moving in the right direction, plus finding out for sure that the level of carbs I'm at - this liveable for me level - is working.

Days 6-11 in Food

2011-02-11T13:31:00.002-05:00

I'm still on track for food. It's amazing how easy it is to stick to this when I really put my mind to it. I had a planning meeting for church on Tuesday night and baked brownies, but I didn't eat any. I had the Young Women over for our activity on Wednesday night and set out two kinds of cookies. Didn't eat any. This morning at a work meeting, I could have eaten a big ole bagel with cream cheese. But I didn't.

I think really thinking about the science of this is helping me. The basic gist is, you eat carbs, your insulin spikes, and insulin promotes fat storage. When you eat protein and fats, your insulin doesn't spike. Sometimes I worry that I've become insulin-resistant at this point and need to be eating even fewer carbs than I am. I've been eating about 50-70 net carbs per days and I hope I'll start losing weight and/or toning up soon so that I know I'm at a good level of carbs. This is liveable. I don't know if I can go much lower without feeling deprived.

Jimmy Moore, one of the low-carb podcasters I listen to, often says that he broke his sugar addiction by imagining sugar as poison. I didn't think that trick would work for me because my brain knows very well that sugar is not poison. Sugar is sweet and yummy and happy-making. However, I do have this internal monologue that's been kicking in lately when I contemplate eating something with sugar or grains. Just a little reminder of how the cookie or the bagel will affect my insulin. Then suddenly I don't even want whatever it is anymore. For some reason, that's what's working for me right now.

As I told Jason the other night when he asked me if I wanted a little bit of a cookie, it's a little bit of cookie here, and a small brownie there that got me to where I am right now - heavier than I've been in 4 years.

If nothing else, I'm feeling really good. No late afternoon drops in energy anymore. I love that aspect of eating this way.

I started my 30 days of 30 minutes of activity per day officially on Monday. Every day this week, I've managed to get in at least 30 minutes of activity, and some days more. My steps have been over 10,000 every day since Monday as well. I've started strength training again.

Basically, I feel like I'm doing all the right things. I hope to see some progress on the scale or in my clothes or somewhere soon.

To the Gym!

2011-02-07T15:23:00.004-05:00

Yesterday we drove up to Boston, so I figured my excuse of not being able to get to the gym because I couldn't get the car out of the ice wouldn't hold up any longer. However, I'm still trying to get to work earlier (and stay later) in an effort to show my boss that my life isn't being overtaken by my church responsibilities. December was a little light on the billable hours because I left early a bunch of evenings.

So what that means is the alarm goes off at 5:15 AM. Which means I can hit the 10-minute snooze once, maybe twice, before I absolutely have to get up and go. I had a giant battle in my head this morning, but in the end, I won, and I was up and out of the house by 6:05. A little late, but not terrible. I got in 25 minutes of weights and 25 minutes on the elliptical.

The first day back on the elliptical suuuuucks. (Can you tell I've been hanging out with the teenagers?) I know tomorrow and the next day and the next day will be better, but for some reason, I kind of feel like I'm dying the entire time when I hop on the elliptical after not doing it for a few weeks.

For extra credit, I went on a 50-minute lunch walk. The sun was shining and the snow was finally melting and I figured I should get out there while I could since I think tomorrow it's supposed to snow a bit or rain a bit (or maybe, to be super fun, both).

Today will be Day 1 of my next 30 Day Fitness Challenge. That's 30 minutes of activity per day for 30 days.

Still holding strong with the low carbs. Saturday I ate 31 net carbs. I know, right? I was a little amazed by that. Sunday we had Indian food and I was pleased to discover that the flatbread is made from lentils. I wound up with 55 g net carbs yesterday AND I totally didn't cave and eat one of the fudgey brownie bites at our post-choral service reception.

I love those brownie bites.

Go me!

Day 5: Weighing

2011-02-05T19:03:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to stay optimistic. The thing is, I know low-carb works. It's worked for me before. Not only that, but it makes sense. The more I learn about the biology and what's going on in my body when I eat carbs, the more convinced I am that it really is the key to gaining and losing fat.

Jason summed it up nicely after we finished dinner the other day, consisting of steak, salad and roasted cauliflower with cheese sauce: "Now we'll sit back while our blood sugar doesn't go up."

It's been awhile since I've made a real go at it, and I know it will take time, like everything. This month of February, I have a goal of being consistent and getting in the habit of minimizing my carbs.

Only it's really hard not to pay attention to the number on the scale. Today I weighed 2 pounds more than last week. The number just keeps going up and makes me want to cry because it's a number that I promised myself 4 years ago I would never see again.

On the other hand, my hip measurement has decreased 3/4 of an inch and my chest has decreased 1/2 and inch. So, like I said, I'm trying to stay optimistic and hope that this is just that awkward moment at the beginning when I'm starting to get a bit leaner, but it's underneath this layer of fat I have.

Jason and I went for a 3-mile walk this morning. Having a buddy really makes the time fly, that's for sure. Then I did about 20 minutes of strength exercises when I got home.

I know if I can just stay the course, I'll start seeing results. I'm just so uncomfortable in my own skin (and my clothes) right now. More motivation to keep working on it, right? Yeah, but it's also easy to get discouraged. Am trying to just stay motivated.

Day 4 and Last Night

2011-02-04T11:34:00.002-05:00

Last night: Capital Grille for Restaurant Week.

Stumbling blocks: lack of choice for side dishes and the bread basket.

I ate a couple of pieces of the divine bread in the bread basket. I also ate some mashed potatoes because the only other side option on the Restaurant Week menu was creamed spinach. I can't handle creamed spinach. (Massive penicillin allergy + creamed spinach = lifelong aversion to as much as the hint of the odor of creamed spinach. I can't even handle sauteed spinach if it's been sauteed a touch too long.)

Net carbs for yesterday: 68 g.

That's still a far cry from the 250-300 g per day that most people eat. I'm ok with it.

It's sunny out today and I was thinking about venturing out for a lunch walk, but my boss just came back inside and informed us that it's sunny, but COLD. I think I'm officially going to defer my activity challenge until the weather gets a bit better and I can actually do some activity every day. I think Jason extracted his car from the ice this morning, so maybe I'll make it to the gym tomorrow. If not, I'll do weights at home again.