Day 4, Week 3: Dogs mock me and let's talk about eating.

I went to bed last night with every intention of getting up and biking like a crazy woman in the dark.  And then I went and overslept and had to do a short 3-miler instead with the large dog.  My punishment for oversleeping was the large dog running at such an odd angle to me that he almost pulled me in the ditch for all three of those miles.  As you can see, he thought that was freaking hilarious.

Or maybe he was just laughing at my shorts.  Anyway, even if I can't do my scheduled workout, I like to do something.  I read somewhere that consistency is your BFF--if you make an effort to do something every day, you're gonna do that something every day out of sheer habit eventually and get the results you want.  This little gem applies to good habits as well as bad habits, however.  For example, I used to consistently overeat crappy food.  And it showed.

The day I decided to make a change I started with exercise.  I got up and resolved to do 15-20 minutes of exercise in the morning before work.  Yep, I had to get up earlier than normal, but I also knew I had to make time for this new consistency in my life. 

But I soon realized it wasn't just about moving more.  My eating was a tad bit of a problem.  OK, it was around 90% of the problem.  I needed to view food as fuel, not something I did to self-medicate and make myself feel better.  My diet before I decided to get my eating act together looked something like this:

1) Find the most sugary and/or salty food I could find that came in a pre-packaged container

2) Open container

3) Eat all of it

4) Go find more and eat some more

5) Crack open a soda (Dr. Pepper was my drug of choice) and drink it. 

6) Repeat step #5 at least six times a day.

My diet now looks like this:

1) Eat real food. 

2) But not too much.

3) Make sure to eat a variety of real foods. (I have a tendency to eat the same things over and over until I can't stand the sight of them anymore..variety avoids burning out on them.)

4) Eat your veggies, Terie, even if you don't like them

5) Water water and more water

As a result of mainly my dietary changes, I can now wear these AWESOME shoes.  And fit into that dress.  Oh, and run marathons.

The cat on the table in the background is, as usual, unimpressed by my fashion sense.

So, what are the lessons from today's post?

• My large dog is a jerk
• I need to get my biking act together
• Consistency really *is* your BFF-in both exercise and eating
• Exercise helps, but changing your eating will change your body, for better or for worse
• Impressing cats with fashion is hard

Tomorrow's workout: More lifting of the heavy weights-barbell included!

I didn't eat my way through the afternoon. For once.

Today's weigh-in:  145.2 lbs.  Down from yesterday, up from the weekend.  Not by much though.  I didn't feel as skinny today as I did yesterday; I think the lack of sleep is catching up to me.

After I weighed in and had breakfast, I did a duathlon race simulation, doing a 1.5 mile run, an 8 mile bike, and another 1.5 mile run.  It's amazing how after you do a marathon a 1.5 mile run is pretty damn short to you, so mentally those runs aren't that challenging.  The second run after the bike takes a bit of getting used to after you hop off the bike and back on terra firma, but I'm usually OK after about 400 meters.

The bike portion was a little slower today, but the bike shoes and toe clips were much, much easier to manage.  Like I tell my students, fail often to succeed sooner--and I failed a hell of a lot yesterday so I could succeed this morning.  Here's the aftermath of yesterday's falls while trying to get my toe clips clipped and start some sort of forward motion that ended up going downward toward the ground instead:

It looks way worse than it is.  But I have a hard time bending that knee in a squat position because it feels like I am going to rip that wound on the front of my leg wide open again.  Good times.

Because I have a duathlon in a few days, I decided I also needed to dress the part and buy some actual cycling clothing so I would fit it until they actually saw me ride on the bike (or at least try to get my toes clipped in).

The one with sleeves is made by Primal, and the sleeveless one is made by Zoot.  The latter one intrigues me, because it has a sports bra built right into the sucker.  I will have to try it out tomorrow morning when I do my final duathlon workout, which will consist of a 2 mile run, a 10 mile bike, and a 2 mile run.  On Friday I am resting because my butt is incredibly sore from biking so damn much this week (oh, and to give my legs a rest before I actually do this thing).  I don't like to wear my cycling shorts on the bike and then run in them; frankly, I feel like I have a load in my pants while I waddle down the road trying to get my running legs back from my biking legs.

But enough about loads.  Today I had a facial after work and I reek of lavender facial stuff they rubbed all over my face.  That meant I had to drive at breakneck speed from my place of employment to the spa.  I then had an hour long facial (deee-LICIOUS!) and then did a little shopping in town.  I then drove home.

Why am I giving you a boring play-by-play of my after work hours?  Because I want you to notice that nowhere in there was eating involved.  Not once.  I had my apple after school and then got all the way home without once thinking about eating.

Not once.  This is a big deal for me.

During marathon training, all I could think about was eating after work, and eat I would, about every half hour.  If I was going anywhere after work, I used it as an excuse to pick up something questionable and eat it for dinner, telling myself I would eat healthier tomorrow to make up for it.  Or I would come straight home from work and grab the hubbs' bags of unhealthy snacks and down them as if I were going to get caught any moment.

But I didn't do any of that today; the urge just wasn't there anymore.  Some bad habits are getting broken.  I just have to remember not to fall back into them.

So, instead of eating my way through town, I took pictures of these crazy clouds:

Much more aesthetically pleasing than watching me plow through a Jimmy John's sandwich.

Gravity Lessons

I tried out my new bike today (a Trek Lexa) in this crazy 90 degree weather we're having (I just knew Mother Nature would skip spring this year.  That *BLEEP*.)  My knees and shins tried out the gravel driveway after I experimented with my bike shoes:

That sucker wouldn't stop bleeding.

So now my knees and left shin are super sore from this thing called "gravity" and "my body hitting the ground and my bike hitting my body."  Why do I take up new sports that only serve to remind me why I was never in sports in high school or college?

Those bike shoes will not defeat me.  I will learn how to clip them on AND start pedaling forward at the same time.  Dammit.  (But methinks I will be using the regular pedals and running shoes for my duathlon on Saturday.  Just to be on the safe side of my knees; after all, I gotta Ragnar it up in the month of June.)

But let's talk about today's weigh-in.  It was up from yesterday, 145.6 lbs.  It was probably because I stayed up last night all geeking out in an educational Twitter chat and only got about 5 hours of sleep.

But even though I got up weighing more, I felt much slimmer today.  Skinnier.  Better.  I wore a dress today that, 3 weeks ago, I felt like a total cow wearing.  My eyeballs may be fooling me, but all of this eating real food and  sticking with food with brakes and eating green things called vegetables is starting to pay off in ways the numbers on the scales can't measure.  And just after 2 weeks.

Even if they are fooling me, I'll believe that delusion for now.  I'll take all of the motivation I can get.

Food with brakes.

I woke up today and the scale was back up to 145.2 pounds, probably due to what happened last night.

Last night I went out to dinner.

It was Mother's Day, and we were celebrating actual mothers in the family (the hubbs' two sisters that live in the area).  We went to one of my favorite restaurants, The Machine Shed in Rockford, IL.  It features meat, meat, and more meat on the menu, with downhome country cookin' as its draw to get customers in the door.

The food can only be described as orgiastic.  It's that good.  Piles of meat and potatoes with gravy everywhere, man.

Which is why I approached the meal with more than a little trepidation; I mean, this place does not fit AT ALL into my eating manifesto.  I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep my eating under control.  So I decided exactly what I was going to eat before I got there:

• A salad.
• A BBQ Brisket sandwich with sweet potato fries.   (And they always put too much meat on the sandwich, so I knew I would take some off.)

That decision saved me.

You see, this place brings you free food before your food.  Cole slaw, cottage cheese, and a basket of buttery warm rolls and sweet bread.  Plus, the people with which I was eating ordered appetizers before their actual entrees as well.

There was way too much food before the food.  But I was steadfast through all of the food, telling the waitress to bring my salad when the appetizers came.  As the plates of fried food of all kinds (chicken, shrimp, and even cheese) were shuffled around the table, I sat there quietly, staring down into my salad and trying to keep up with the conversation.

When my entree came, I ate about half of the fries and then started in on the sandwich after I had taken a strip of brisket off of it.  I ate my sandwich, but felt like I was going to burst at the end.  It was then that I wondered how everyone else could have eaten so much around me, yet I was full after eating much less.

A friend of mine recently recommended the book, It Starts With Food.  I'm about a third of the way through it, but I like it so far.  It's full of sciencey goodness related to eating (most of which I know already, so I zippity-zipped through it), but there is a phrase that they use in this book to describe the types of food you should be eating: "Food with brakes."

In the book, meat is considered a food with a brake; in other words, it is one which fills you up and gets you to stop eating.  And believe me, I felt stuffed by the time I finished that sandwich.  I couldn't eat another bite--I didn't even want dessert, which is highly unusual for a sugar addict such as myself.

A lot of my dinner companions couldn't finish their own meat-and-gravy-laden entrees either.  Maybe it was the meat that did us all in.

But I am happy that I made a decision before I left about what I would eat and I stuck to it.  Even if I am up 0.2 lbs today, it could have been a lot worse (you should have seen me pile it in after a 20 mile training run).  I was tempted to run again today because of that slight increase, but wiser heads prevailed and I went down and lifted instead.

My upper body is pretty much ablaze with soreness right now.  Not my best decision all day, but at least I know I am making more right ones with my eating lately than wrong ones.

There is bacon in this blog post.

Today I went on a 10 mile run.  It was really windy (16 mph winds), but the warmth and sun made up for that.  I was wearing one of my favorite race t-shirts and my screaming neon yellow running capris, and I was stoked that I didn't have to wear gloves.  But it wasn't a typical 10-mile run for me.

I was feeling pretty darn spectacular the entire time.  I felt really strong in mile 8, which is odd for me.  Even though I had to slow down when I was running head-on into that crazy wind (my stupid fault for not looking at the wind direction when planning my route), I felt good the whole time.

I felt strong.

I remember my first 10 mile run.  I felt like my knees were going to secede from my body, and it about destroyed me physically (But not mentally!  I was pretty pumped!).  I remember struggling to do 12 minute miles.  I remember how hard it was to finish that 10th mile, trudging down the street with my quads like cinder blocks, throwing my legs out in front of me and hoping like hell my legs wouldn't decide to stop before I did.

Today's run felt easy.  It's amazing what four months of marathon training will do.

My next round of marathon training starts on June 16th, this time for Twin Cities.  Let's see how much stronger I can get.

But I know you all are just dying to know what my weigh-in was like this morning, so I'll shut-up and just show you the picture:

So, in a week, this means I have lost 2 pounds--just by cooking at home.  My husband and I did go out yesterday before we went bike shopping (more on that in a later post), but I had oatmeal, fruit, and a strip of bacon that will make all other bacon hang its head in shame:

Oink.

The only reason I had a strip was because I realized that my meal had no protein in it whatsoever.  Since I am technically still recovering from my marathon, I have been very protein-conscious this past week.

Thus, I feel my week has begun in a pretty groovy way, on both the exercise and eating fronts.  Let's see if I can sustain the strength throughout this week, as I come to the slow realization that I have only 2 short weeks left at my current place of employment.

Food for thought.

I only have time for a quick post this evening, so I won't waste your time with a sassy little introduction and just get right to today's weigh-in:

Down 0.4 lbs today.  That zero never looked so good.

That motivated me to come straight home after work and eat my dinner at home before I dashed off to a meeting of sorts at my new job this evening.  I badly wanted to just stay at work and then head straight over to my meeting and then con my husband to go out to dinner....but not after seeing the scale this morning.

Oddly enough, I think it's the morning weigh-ins that are keeping me on track.  Thinking back, it's the first thing I stopped doing when I started going off the rails again with my eating.

Now that's some food for thought.  (pun intended)

Nonlinguistic representations of my body image. Because words get boring after awhile.

So I was talking to my Southern momma the other night.  Talking with my mom (who is from and currently resides in Alabama) is an adventure in and of itself, since you must simultaneously listen to her end of the conversation as well as try to figure out the ends of her sentences, because she doesn't always complete them before jumping to her next thought.  Anyway, because she's so far away she doesn't get to come watch any of my races; so I sent her the pictures from my recent marathon, and she told me I looked so skinny.  Or, in her southern drawl, she said I looked "soOoooOooooOoo  skeeeeny."

Moms are so darn cute.  

But I don't see "skeeeny" at all when I look at my pics.  As a matter of fact, I home in right on my perceived negatives and linger there, as if by staring at them long enough I will shame those body parts into slimming down by sheer force of will.

But the crazy thing is that other people don't see negative where I see negative.  It's amazing to me how your body image gets so distorted after being 200+ pounds that you struggle forever after with what a normal body should look like.  I don't remember this being a problem as a kid; I thought I pretty much looked spectacular all the time and never ever worried about how I looked in anything.  And I should have been, since I grew up in the 1980's for Christ's sake, where people pranced around in skinny ties, sweater dresses, leg warmers, parachute pants, side-ponytails, huge shoulder pads, and all things neon.

People tell me I look skinny, but I never believe them (especially my husband, who married me at a size 22 and told me I always looked good.  I love him for this, but I can no longer trust his judgement.  Sorry, honey).  In fact, this is how I always feel:

Even when I was at my skinniest, I still felt I looked like that.  This is something that will need to be overcome during this round of weight loss, especially since if I now ask my husband if I look fat he just walks away after snorting at me in disgust.

Speaking of this round of weight loss, here was today's weigh-in:

There's my crazy veiny feet again.

Another 0.2 lbs!  Again, I'll take it!  I am feeling pretty pumped so far; but, then again, it is only day 4.  Having meals that I made cooked and waiting for me to heat up when I get home has been so helpful in stopping me from diving right into laziness and going out for some processed grub.  And, I have to admit, having the scale creep down slowly has also been a motivator.  Let's see what tomorrow brings when I have to be somewhere in the evening and am rushed for dinner....

Don't even pretend that you don't have eating conversations with yourself, too.

This morning I got up and did some Total Body Tri-Sets and let Cathe abuse me with her multiple painful forms of push-ups and her lower body exercises that made my glutes sore by mid-day.  But before I went downstairs for this completely voluntary exercise abuse, I weighed in.

And today's weight is.....

I have some veiny feet.

Down another 0.2 pounds!  I'll take it.  It didn't come on all at once, and it sure won't come off that way.

I spent the work day today figuring out how to stop snacking so much in-between meals (oh, and actually doing my job, too).  I realized that since I get up at 4 AM, lunchtime for my body is actually around 10...and, since I don't teach that period, I started eating my lunch then.  And when I say "started" I mean I ate half of it--my carrots and my yogurt.  I then taught for a period, and then ate my sandwich during my regularly scheduled lunch period.  Then it was all teach teach teach snack teach teach snack sit down and get some work done now go home and blog about my weight like a fool.

What struck me the most was the mental gymnastics that occurred within my brain right after school let out at 3 PM.  I finished my afternoon snack (apple and a cheese stick) with the cheese stick and then sat down to do some work.  Within a half an hour I wanted something to eat again.  The convo in my brain went a little something like this:

Body: "I'm hungry."

Brain: "No you're not.  You just ate half an hour ago."

Body: "No....I'm pretty sure I'm hungry.  There's food over there in the office.  Let's get some."

Brain: "I don't think so.  I'm not feeling hungry.  Are you sure you're hungry?"

Body: "Pretty sure, even thought your stomach isn't saying so! The food is just about 10 feet away! Let's Goooooooooooooo!"

I used to eat constantly from the time school let out until the time I went home.  I think it's a vestige of when I used to smoke-when I couldn't smoke I had a tendency to nosh a bit.  And, since they tend to frown upon smoking in school these days, eating seemed like a less risky alternative.  

Well, I quit smoking almost 3 years ago.  It's time to quit all these nasty little habits that went with it.

On a completely unrelated note, I feel like I have more energy now that I am eating real food I cook myself for dinner rather than going off in search of an easy meal that contains mystery ingredients or ingredients that are food in name only. Since it's only been two days, however, this may all be my brain's way of trying to make the best of a bad situation by lying to itself.

Hopefully the scale will keep trending downward tomorrow. 

Yes, I really did post a picture of that.

To those that know me, you know I am the queen of sharing things that no one on this green Earth really needs to know about me.  I just don't know why some of this stuff is so considered taboo (unless it's the stuff people share on My Strange Addiction or Freaky Eaters...then I get it), but, nonetheless, I feel the need to share things others consider private information.

Because of this strange compulsion for sharing that plagues me, I am feeling the need right now to share what I weigh every morning.  I have to admit it's not because I want to tell everyone, but I feel it is necessary to keep myself accountable in my whole "I will lose these 20 pounds goddammit" weight loss journey upon which I have embarked.  So, here was this morning's weight:

Note the blue polish.  I love blue.

You should also know that I am 5'8" tall (well, just shy of it), so that weight doesn't put me in the obese or overweight category according to the BMI charts that float about the internet.  It's just not where I want to be--I need to be lighter to be faster.  However, it is 0.2 lb lighter than what it read yesterday when I had my meltdown, and I'll take improvement when I can get it (even if it is probably due to water weight fluctuations).  

But I am feeling good about cooking again.  Today I dusted off (literally) the ol' crock pot, making some pinto beans to which I have added jalapenos because I am a glutton for gustatory punishment.  

I feel good not because I am cooking, but because I know I will have dinner made for the week.  This means I will have no excuse to go out to eat for dinner after work.  I have to combat my weeknight laziness with weekend cooking productivity, apparently.

I am also feeling good about a 7 mile run I did this morning with a friend (was so nice to have company for once!), where my watch says I burned almost 800 calories.  I tried out a new running skirt again, this time an Adidas one I found at a local Ross store:

I have the ugliest living room in the known universe.

This skirt had much shorter spandex tights underneath than the skirt I wore yesterday but I didn't chafe, and they didn't ride up far enough to feel like bikini underwear.  However, I could feel the rubbing of the thighs, so I'm sure chafing would be inevitable if I did 20 miles in this one.  This outfit was perfect for the weather: 60 degrees and a nice cool wind of 8 mph.  I even impressed myself by remembering to wear sunscreen.

I actually got that run done early, so now I get to spend the rest of the day working my tail off (my student teacher's last day was Friday...back to the grind).  At least I'll be busy working rather than thinking about eating.

I told you I was freaking serious.

I cooked tonight.  If the world ends tomorrow, it will be my fault.  But, since the world will have ended, none of you can come after me anyway.  Take that!

After releasing my eating manifesto this morning, I went and made some dee-licious turkey chili for myself tonight:

It has kidney beans, garbanzo beans, and black beans, along with turkey (duh).  It also has some cayenne pepper and green chiles in it, because I like my chili to hit me full on in the mouth like I was in Fight Club (food flight club?).  Seriously, I was sweating while eating this.

While making the chili I had the rest of my dinner: a banana and some corn.  I know, not what you'd typically eat with chili, but it's my eating manifesto, thankyouverymuch.  I had three small all-natural oatmeal cookies afterwards for dessert.

The rest of the day went OK.  I had to have a small second snack between lunch and dinner because I was out getting a pedicure and shopping and my stomach began to growl like crazy.  I don't actually feel too badly about this, simply because I was:

a) Freaking hungry, and

b) About to enter a grocery store which, when you are hungry, turns into a playground for buying everything that looks edible.

I was happy that I resisted the urge to snack on other things while preparing dinner.  It seems that I get more and more snack happy as the day wears on--something to take note of so I can head it off at the pass.  I think instead of a health bar for a snack in the afternoon I will switch that up with an apple and string cheese; maybe I will feel fuller a bit longer.

I am disappointed I slipped back into some bad eating habits all in the name of marathon training.  But I will be blogging about my meals (I can sense your enthusiasm) to hold myself accountable, much like I did with my runs during marathon training.  

I just have to remember that I managed my eating successfully once before, and I can do it again.

Mushroom burgers: Meh. New shoes: Any excuse will do.

I'm still doing well on my new "eating real food more of the time" eating plan.  I came home last night fully expecting to eat another chicken breast, but when I opened the package the distinct smell of potential food poisoning met my nostrils.   So I ahd to throw them out and find an alternative.

I scoped out what was in the fridge and freezer, and came across some mushroom burger-thingies that I had bought because a) I love mushrooms and b) I love burgers.  They are only 110 calories a burger, so I thought I would cook me up one of 'em and chow down.  I dressed it up by putting it on a whole wheat bagel for some carbage and adding jalapenos and salsa for bonus flavorings.

It looked edible. 

It was only meh.  Next time I'll try a turkey burger instead.

But enough about food; I have a burning question that needs some answering: How I can run 7 miles (5 at 10K pace) on a foot with tendinitis and have it feel freaking fabulous the next day?

Every time I get an injury, it seems that running more is usually the answer to making it feel better.  I will never understand this.

Of course, it may have to do with the fact that I discovered that it may have been my shoes doing the damage.  So, because I have two X chromosomes, I turned this injury into an excuse to go shoe shopping.  Because I ran pain-free in my Asics on Thursday night, I decided to go after another pair of Asics.  I purchased the Gel Cumulus-14s, which I had eyeballed a few months ago but never purchased.  But a close runner-up was the Brooks Glycerin--oh man, were those some nice-feeling shoes.  But they still put a little pressure on my extensor tendon that hurt, so I wisely opted out of getting them.  But I will be keeping them in mind for a future purchase.

So now that I have my new pair of shoes and the weather isn't all rainy and nasty like it was yesterday....

...I think I will try and go for my long run that is scheduled for today.  22 miles.  My plan is to go for all 22, but stop and turn around if I feel any pain in that tendon; I may even do a walk/run approach if the pain gets too bad.  But right now it feels perfectly normal, and hopefully the new shoes I bought can keep it that way.

Also, I plan on doing this run on the Long Prairie Trail, a place a coworker recommended to me because I am tired of being chased by people's dogs.  I am excited about running in a new place, but more excited that my foot stopped hurting and that I can resume my training.

Hopefully this run won't screw up that plan.  I'll let you know how it goes later.