Thanksgiving, dresses, metabolic rates...

Thanksgiving went fine. I forgot to put starch in the apple pie, and the hashbrown casserole was a bit of a disappointment, but everything else was good. We have about 10 lbs of leftover turkey, but that's what I get for buying a 20-lb bird for 8 people. I mean, I bought it so we would have lots of leftovers, but I was really expecting guests to take some home with them. Rob's mom did, but we've been dining on leftovers for 3 days and are only about halfway through. Anyone know a good turkey soup recipe? Turkey casserole? Maybe we could work green bean casserole in there somewhere? Desperation is the mother of invention in cooking, too, right? (Or is that necessity?)

Anyway, I meant to get back here on Friday to post music, but never got around to it. I also didn't weigh in last week, since my meeting day is Thursday and I was busy with the turkey. Again, could have done it on Friday, but weigh in the day after Thanksgiving? You can't be serious. :) So I skipped a week. I'll be back on the scale this Thursday, right before the annual formal holiday party.

Speaking of which, I tried my dress on with the, erm, augmented bra from last year, and it fits fine. So, no alterations--yay! I also found some jewelry, shoes, and a purse. I'm a little uneasy about the shoes and purse, because they don't match the color of the dress. I tried to find wine-colored shoes, but didn't want to pay $100 for uncomfortable sandals that I would only wear for 3 hours anyway. So I bought black, to hell with the fashionistas. Who's gonna be looking at my feet anyway, right? (I do sort of wish I had bought a black dress now, though.)

And let's just not talk about the annual party picture. I'm going to look fatter this year. There's just no getting around it. All the fat-wrangling undergarments in the world wouldn't make me look 20 lbs thinner, and that's what it would take just to even it out between this year and last. Ah well, bygones. Hopefully, next year's picture will put them all to shame.

In bike news, I didn't make the 100-mile goal last week. Skipping the commute and a spin class reduced me to only 55 miles. This week should be better--I've already got 83 real-bike miles and one class under my belt, with two days left. Since the consensus on the poll I posted last week seems to be 10 miles/class, that means I only need 7 more miles to meet the 100-mile goal. Since I've got a class planned for Wednesday, looks like $10 more for the MS Society.

How much they get for weight loss still remains to be seen. I'm starting to get frustrated by my body's refuse-to-lose attitude. I have burned over 5000 calories in exercise over the past 4 days (per my HRM), and my weight was exactly the same on my home scale this morning as it was two weeks ago. I'm not eating the world over here...even with the turkey extravaganza, I wouldn't put my calorie intake average over 2500 per day. I've been guzzling water for two days. I mean, I'm glad that I didn't gain anything, but I'm sick to death of losing so slowly.

So, I'm taking a more intensive approach this week than I have been recently. Well, for the past two years, really. Today, I've tracked everything, and plan to continue through the next 3 weeks(I'd go longer, but that's running into the Christmas vacation, and I'd rather not deal with counting then). If my calories-in, calories-out don't start matching up*, I'm going to have to see about a doctor visit.

*With a reasonable margin for error, of course. I'm pretty sure my monitor is over-estimating calorie expenditure, and I have to take water retention and such into account as well. Still, if documented food - documented exercise = less than standard BMR, and I'm putting on weight, well...something's rotten in the state of Joy, is what I'm saying.

http://www.ullreys.com/robert/Podcasts/index.html

I just saw this on iTunes and thought of you. I don't know if you are still interested in couch to 5k, but this guy has created a week-by-week (free!) podcast that puts music to the running goals.

awesome--thanks!

I haven't been running much lately, but figure I'll pick it back up eventually.

Just a thought, if you are eating 2,500 a day and say your BMR is 1,700 that is 800 extra calories a day you are consuming x 7 for the week which equals 5,600 extra calories less exercise calories of 5,000 = 600 too many calories...

Which is why either a gain or a small loss is being seen.

You obviously have the exercise down pat, but food needs to be next :) Good luck Joy :)

well, when you put it like that...:)

but seriously, the math works out that way over 7 days, but I was just talking about those 4. If I count Tues-Mon, the exercise number is around 6500, which makes for a 800-calorie deficit. And really, if we're going to average Tues-Mon, the food number is probably closer to 2000/day, since the holiday will have less impact overall. That would make the deficit 4400 for the week, which is still not a huge weekly number. So your point is still totally valid, and proves that I hadn't really done the weekly math until now.

It may turn out that I've just got less of a deficit than I realize...my biggest problem is that I don't really know. That, and being able to lay off the food. :)

Sorry, I couldn't help but do the math, I am a beancounter afterall :)