So, about that challenge I mentioned on Sunday. I spent a half-hour or so writing up a post about it yesterday, then it got so muddled and boring that I gave up. So here I am again, this time just giving the basics.
The MS150 is 22 weeks away. I would like to be ready for it when the day arrives, and I would also like to be considerably lighter. I don't have any experience with this, but I strongly suspect that hills and headwinds are easier to deal with at 160 lbs than at 200.
So, I have a challenge ahead of me. Click OPEN WIDE to see the full description, in three parts: Goals, Plans, and Rewards.
Goals
Plans
First, the training plan, because it's more complicated.
As for the food plan, it's simpler.
Rewards
Ah, my favorite section. :)
First, to keep myself motivated, I figured I'd need some intermediate rewards. Then I tried to think of some, and couldn't. Apparently, I am in the enviable position of having all the stuff I want. So, I decided to incorporate fundraising into my reward scheme.
If everything goes exactly as planned, that'll take me almost halfway to my donation requirement. To keep from having to make a whole bunch of little donations, I'm going to transfer this money to a savings account weekly, then donate all of it at once.
As far as the end reward...the biggest one is going to be finishing the event without needing weeks to recover. And, of course, being 30 lbs lighter will be its own reward, also.
However, accomplishment as its own reward has never really been a great motivator for me. Neither have prizes, but I think that's because I tend to just get them whether I meet the challenge or not. So, this time I had to choose something so outrageous that I needed some serious justification to buy it.
For a while now, I've been saying that I'll start shopping for a new bike when my current one gets up to 5,000 miles or I get to my weight loss goal, whichever comes first. Guess what? This MS150 training will get me up to 5,000 miles by early April.
So, if I meet both goals, I'm upgrading my bike. Probably to this or this, but I'm going to have to ride and see.
So, to quote a talking toy truck that Noah had when he was 2, "Let's get movin'!"
So, this weekend, I saw something that I haven't seen since 2003:
200 lbs.
200.5, to be exact. And we're talking first morning nude weigh-in here. How did this happen?!
I know that I have some hormonal things going on, that I wasn't drinking enough water, and that there was some movie theater popcorn, and that my eating overall hasn't been great lately, but damn. I can't have put on 20 lbs in 6 months, could I? And I wasn't I just bitching about 195 a couple weeks ago? What is happening to my body? It's out of control! I'm out of control!
I could feel it happening, though...my clothes were getting tighter, especially through the middle, and I was starting to become invisible again*. I knew that I was getting noticeably bigger, but I never dreamed that I would hit that fateful 200-in-the-morning ever again. Whatever its cause, that was a serious wake-up call.
It's time to get back in control. No more slacking on the calorie counting. Much less eating out. Much more water. I will not stay over 200 again. I. WILL. NOT.
*I've found that once I get over a certain size, strangers/acquaintances stop noticing me. It's not a dramatic change...just little things. I have a harder time getting a salesperson's attention, people stop making eye contact, greetings and smiles are not offered or go unreturned, interactions are less friendly/respectful overall. I know it's not just me, because I've heard/read about it from other bigger people too, particularly women. It could just be a vibe I put out when I'm bigger, that I'm insecure or whatever, that makes people less likely to be courteous or friendly. I'm not entirely sure of the root cause, I just know that it's been coming back as I've put on weight. It's funny, because it's not something I ever noticed before I started losing, because I never thought of myself as very approachable anyway. I certainly noticed it when it started happening again, though. You'd think that getting bigger would make someone more visible, not less.
Inspired by the fact that my foot no longer hurts, and it's only 72 degrees outside at this very moment after one of the hottest Septembers in my recent memory, I'm thinking that I'm going to redo the Couch-to-5k plan this fall.
One of my goals this year was to run a 5k, and since I'm probably not going to make the "bike a century" goal (though I will be close!), I'd like to accomplish this one. If I started the 9-week program next week, I'd be done by December. I know I can find a 5k race somewhere around here in December (maybe this one?). Even if I can't, I can run 5k distances on my own until 1/15, when there's a 5k race scheduled with the Houston Marathon. OR if I want to bump up the schedule a bit, I could do this one on Thanksgiving (it also has the advantage of being very close to home).
So yeah. Running. I'm going to start doing that again. I'm doing my first week 1 walk/run in about an hour.
UPDATE: Upon further review, that Thanksgiving race is 5 miles, not 5 km. Looks like 12/3 is the most doable 5k, which actually works out well for me. If I start the C25K now, I'll complete it on 12/2.
I didn't do a goals post this week because they're all basically the same. 1000 calorie limit before 5 pm, 75/25 protein/fiber, go easy on the weekend eating. 3 interval workouts, 2 strength, one long ride, a longish walk, 2 abs routines. Blah, blah, etc.
So far, I've knocked out two interval workouts, the long ride, one ab routine, and the walk. I'm planning a strength (upper body) tonight, which leaves only one more interval workout, a strength, and an abs before Friday. I'm also just 2 fitness points away from meeting the incentive goal at work, and as luck would have it, that's exactly how many days are left in the quarter. So that part's going well.
The food part is also going pretty well. The weekend was sort of high calorie, but it usually is. I'm not inclined to beat myself up over it. Yesterday was under 1800, and today is right on target so far. Hopefully, I'll end today at around 1500.
The scale continues to thwart me. The number has come back down out of the 180s, but barely. I guess this is to be expected after a couple high-calorie weekend days, but it's still frustrating. I want to see some serious 170s, dammit. Even though I know I'll see better numbers eventually if I just keep doing what I'm doing, it's frustrating in the moment.
It is made less frustrating, however, by the fact that my 16s are getting a little too roomy through the legs and waistband. Not enough to graduate to anything but the most generously-hipped 14s with any kind of confidence, but it's still encouraging. Also, my arms might be getting slightly smaller, and my shoulders squarer. My posture is definitely better. I can tell something is happening...I just wish the scale would give up the pounds already.
I keep thinking that maybe it will just all fall off at once, you know? Maintain for weeks and weeks, and then drop 10 lbs overnight, or something. I know it doesn't really work that way either, but a girl can dream. Especially a girl with a challenge to win. :)
I think I've mentioned it a couple times already, but I've been super busy lo these past couple weeks. It's like that around here...free time galore for months, and then all of a sudden the world explodes in work. The hills are alive with the sound of work. Work, work, everywhere and not a minute to spare. A break, a break, my kingdom for a break. Etc. At any rate, I've got a few minutes before my restore job is done, so let's get to some goals, shall we?
Food
Yyyeah...this is my sore spot. Even though my workouts were light last week, the main reason I didn't lose anything was because I ate like a fiend 5 days out of 7. This has led me to a couple changes in the plan...
1. I can't do free weekends anymore. I don't necessarily have to count every bite on my days off, but some kind of restraint is definitely in order. What I've decided is that I'm going to have free Saturdays, because I have been starting my Saturdays lately by burning over 1000 calories. Whatever indiscretions I have with the eating later in the day, they balance out. I will be watching my calories on Sundays now, trying to only eat when I'm hungry and as cleanly as I can.
2. I need to stay under 1000 calories before 6 pm. Sounds weird, kind of flying in the face of the traditional "don't eat at night" doctrine. However, the facts are that the meal planning is working for breakfast and lunch but not so much for dinner. I have not felt like cooking in the slightest all week, so we've been eating out a lot. I think if I plan everything until I get home, and just plan on winging it for dinner (within reason, of course), it will keep my overall calories lower. I'm shooting for 1500-1700 again this week. Protein, water, fiber are all the same (75g, 2L, 25g, respectively).
Exercise
Again basically the same, but going a little more specific.
1 walk/run interval workout (3 miles)
2 elliptical interval workouts (45 minutes each)
1 K@thy Smith upper body workout
1 K@thy Smith lower body workout
1 K@thy Smith abs workout
1 set of abs on my own
1 45ish-mile ride (I don't know the exact mileage, since I didn't finish last week because of the $%#&! flat)
1 15-mile ride OR 5-mile walk (these both work out to about 1:15-1:30 total time)
I'm also going to TRY to do my weights workouts in the morning, so that I'm not tempted to skip them.
At my current speeds, this should come out to be...7.5-8 hours? That'll be enough to burn off a pound, I should think. Anything I get from restricting my food will just be gravy.
Mmm...gravy.
So, at our current paces, Rob's going to win our little race/challenge/whatever thingie. I just cannot have that. Since sabotaging his efforts seems unfair (and really, only goes so far...the boy has the will of steel), the logical thing to do is to step up my own efforts. This means, of course, eating less and exercising more. Easy enough, right?
Setting goals is a bit harder. See, I have this tendency to come in just behind my goals. I say I want to eat 1800 calories/day, I average 2000. I say I want to work out 7 hours, I manage 5. If I lower the goals to what I have proven I can do, I do less in order to ensure I do not meet them. I don't know why that is, but it really pisses me off most times. What does my subconscious find so horrible about meeting all my goals, huh? If I knew that, I'd be thin and punctual.
So anyway, the goals for this week are an attempt to fool myself into accomplishing what I want to do in the first place, without making my rebellious, unreliable asshole side do awful, TEDIOUS things like meeting the goals that were actually posted. I guess it's the goal-setting equivalent of setting your alarm 1-2 snooze-hits earlier than you really have to get up.
So, here they are:
Food - 1500 calories per weekday, 100g protein, 25g fiber
Water - 2L per day
3 interval training workouts--elliptical or walk/run
1 long bike ride, if the weather cooperates this weekend
1 upper body strength
1 lower body strength
2 abs
1 long walk
1 short bike ride
So, we'll see how this goes.
In the beginning, waaaaay back in 2003, I used to set monthly goals. I sort of fell away from this as I began to realize that setting goals was a sure way to guarantee that I wouldn't meet them. I'm sure there are deep psychological reasons for my tendency to self-sabotage, but it doesn't much matter. The point is, I don't do well with clearly defined and publicly announced goals.
Now, however, I've gotten into a sort of groove, and I think it's time to bring back some kind of public goals. Since I'm a fan of instant gratification, I've decided to make them weekly instead of monthly like before. Then I can report back every weigh-in day on how well I met the goals, and it will serve a dual purpose of giving me something more to write about on the weigh-in posts. Because lord knows I do love an excuse to make posts 10x longer than they need to be. I'm like the Ry@n Se@crest of obscure weight-loss blogs. :)
So anyway, here are my goals for this week and next (since I caught this one mid-week...also, the goals for this week are just for the days remaining):
Week ending 5/19/05
Less than 2000 calories per day
At least 100g of protein, 25g of fiber per day
At least 2L of water, every day
2 2-mile runs
2 strength workouts
1 long (1-2 hour) walk
1 short (12-20 mile) bike ride
HRM weekly numbers should be at least 5 1/2 hours total time, 2300 calories burned.
Week ending 5/26/05
Less than 1800 calories per day, workdays only
At least 100g of protein, 25g of fiber per day
At least 2L of water per day
1 2-mile run
1 spinning class (would be a long ride, but Noah has an early game and storms are in the forecast)
2 2.5-mile runs
2 strength workouts
1 long walk
1 short bike ride
HRM weekly numbers should be at least 7 1/2 hours, 3500 calories burned.
----------------------
There are more nutritional things that I'd like to keep track of, but the protein and the fiber are the only things I'm setting goals on right now...mostly to be sure I'm getting enough. Protein isn't a problem in that regard, but fiber definitely is. It's a rare day that I reach 25g without supplements.
As you can see, I'm keeping the free weekends. I like not having to worry about the nutritional value of everything that goes in my mouth on my days off. But I do plan to pay attention to the water intake, because I'm tired of feeling so parched by Monday.
I'll report back on Friday with how things went this week....so far I've got 1 run down, and also one <2000 cal day if everything goes according to plan.
heh. I'm punny.
Aaanyway, I've been doing some thinking about the goals for this month. I've been sort of conflicted about it, because on the one hand I don't want to focus too much on numbers. On the other hand, what else have I got? The specific actions I want to take are already in the DNAP*, so I can't even use "exercise every day" as a goal, since it's already listed. So goals almost have to be results of the DNAP, not following the DNAP itself. Otherwise it's redundant to even set monthly goals at all. Does that make any sense? Because now I'm getting a little muddled.
I also have to consider that this month is half over. Sure, I could go a full 4 weeks, but I'd rather stick with progress reports at the beginning of the month. It's easier to remember when to do them that way, instead of having to count back to see if it's been 4 or 5 weeks since the last time I did a progress report. So, the goals for this month have to take into account that I only have 16-17 days. However, I don't want to lower the bar to the point of ridiculousness, where any effort at all is going to result in a gold star. I mean, I set goals so I can challenge myself to meet them. If I can meet them without really trying, then what's the point?
With those things in mind and without further babbling, here's what I finally came up with:
1. Get back into the 170s. This seems fairly achievable, since I was right on the verge of this in this morning's weigh-in. Even if my weight does the usual roller-coaster boogie, I should be able to get comfortably into the middle-to-high 170s by Halloween.
2. Sign up for and ACTUALLY RIDE IN an organized bike event. I love these, and I didn't even sign up for the one I planned to do in September. We were dead-ass broke at the time, and it didn't seem like a good idea to spend $50 signing up for a ride that neither of us were really prepared for.
I did sign up yesterday for this Elves and M0re ride, which should be pretty fun. I was planning to do the 60-mile course, but at this point I think I'd better stick with 36. Rob isn't going to ride at all, but Noah might be interested in the kid's bike rodeo (whatever that is).
3. Get at least 10 fitness points at work. Without going into specifics, my company has a fitness incentive program where they give us one point every time we work out at their on-site facilities. If we get 36 points by the end of a quarter, we get prizes. As I've mentioned before, I love prizes. I have never before won the prizes, though, because I fizzle out in the 2nd month of every quarter. As of this writing, I have 2 fitness points for October.
4. Bring lunch to work 4 times per week. This is my only foody goal, because I don't work well telling myself what I can and can't eat, and how much. I do journal everything as part of the DNAP, but I don't sweat the 35-point days or celebrate too much over the 24-point ones. The last few weeks, I've been over my flex points. This week, I think I've used 25 so far, and I've still lost 2 lbs. Granted, part of that is TOM weight, but you see the point.
This goal is to keep food cost down, and also to control how much I eat during the day without going all point-obsessive. I've found that on the days that I bring lunch, I'm less likely to leave the office at all, and therefore only boredom-eat what's actually in my office. All I keep here are 2-point snacks and fruit, which satisfy my hunger without taking me off course. Madness, meet method.
So, that's it. Scorecard will be tallied November 1st.
*Definitely Not A Plan
I love words. I'm a freak for crossword puzzles, own boxes of books, love etymology, have a pretty extensive vocabulary, am a stickler for spelling and grammar (in other people, of course), hope to someday own the entire 20-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary. Love words.
Sometimes, though, my love of words gets in my way. Sometimes, things become just words to me, and don't seem to be attached to anything practical. Words like, "body fat percentage", for instance.
I got my body fat percentage taken at 24-hour fitness the other day, and I even posted here that it was between 30 and 33%. But it really didn't mean anything to me...sure, it was something I was curious about, and a number I figured I should know, and one that I wanted to bring down as time went on. However, my brain just never made the connection that "body fat percentage" could be used for anything. It was just another measurement to take and file.
I was lurking over at the Donut forums yesterday, and someone (Shiz?) posted something about body fat percentages and calculating your goals from that. I read that and the connection suddenly clicked into place. "Holy shit! I can CALCULATE my goal weight!" (I love math, too. I'm an equal-opportunity nerd.)
So I set about doing just that.
First, I had to figure out how much fat 33% of 177 lbs. was--58.4 lbs.
Subtract that from 177 to get lean body mass--118.6 lbs.
Then I looked up what my goal body fat percentage should be, which was anywhere from 18-25%. I chose 20%, because it would make the math easier.
I started to run the numbers (118.6 =.80x). If my lean body mass stayed exactly the same, then my goal weight should be 148.2. 148.2? That didn't seem right to me, since that is very near the top of the healthy BMI range for my height.
I started to see the problem with that formula--as much as I'd like all my weight loss to be fat and keep all my LBM or build more, that just doesn't happen. There's always going to be some LBM loss, so how much is normal?
I googled for a while, and then decided to ask my fallback source--Rob. He spent two years researching weight loss and muscle-building, lost about 35 lbs. and increased his strength considerably. (Then he took a couple years off, and is back to square one, essentially.) He's a student in everything, so he's read about 50 books on strength training, weight loss, etc. He would know the answer to this question. So I asked him on the way back from the gym last night.
"So, when losing weight, what's the normal ratio of fat to lean mass lost? [and then a bunch of stuff about calculating weight loss goals and most of what I've already written here]"
"Working out and eating well, 75% fat, 25% lean is a good weight loss. With some supplements, you can change that ratio, but those things aren't really all that healthy."
75%. Works for me. So what was the formula? I should mention now that even though I love math, I'm not particularly good at puzzling through things on my own. Give me a stock formula, and I'm all over plugging things into it. Making up my own formula, I tend to do the equivalent of entering a house by breaking a window at the back and crawling through it, rather than just walking through the unlocked front door. In other words, I take a lot of probably-unnecessary steps.
I started with my current goal--135. To get to 135 from 177, I'll have to lose 42 lbs. With a 75/25 ratio, that would be 31.5 lbs. fat, 10.5 lbs. lean. This brings me to 108.1 lean, 26.9 fat. 26.9 is what percentage of 135? 19.9%.
Woohoo! Looks like I had the right goal all along. Now, if I could just get the 40 minutes back that I spent calculating all of this, we'd be cool. :)
(Note: This calculation makes the assumption that I'm not going to gain any lean body mass, which may or may not be true. However, if I had tried to factor that into my little "equation" also, my head might have exploded. This is close enough.)
Weight this morning was 249.5. That's down 1.5 lbs. Not the week I was hoping for, but at least it's a loss, and it gets me back under 250.
Food - I ate 13,252 calories which is an average of 1893/day. That's about 7.5XBW at 250 lbs. That should be considerably below maintenance.
Exercise - I didn't reach either goal I set last week. I lifted 6 times, and did about 2 hours of cardio for the week. I did burn 1664 calories which is pretty close to what I wanted.
I would have expected more loss from those numbers.
For this week, I'm not going to change the food intake much. I'm going to try to eat right at 14,000 calories for the week. I want to burn 2000 calories with exercise, and I want to improve my cardio. While I did cardio last week, I want to have longer sustained sessions of cardio. Instead of 30 minutes 3 times, I want to do 90 minutes in a session. From a pure calorie burning standpoint it may not make much difference, but if the long term goal is to get into better shape overall, then I've got to spend longer periods of time exercising. That's going to mean longer runs after work, and at least one long ride this weekend. We'll see if that helps.
Review time. On my report card and goals statement from 2/5/03, these were the objectives:
Diet - Less than 11500 calories per week
Exercise - 1000 calories burned in deliberate exercise
Weight loss - 6.5 lbs (enough to get down below 200)
Water intake - 2 L per day
Multi-vitamin - Take one every day
Click More>> to see the report card and a new set of short term goals.
REPORT CARD
Diet - When I gained 3 lbs by the 3rd week, I became a little disheartened and gave up for a bit. I have no records of the last part of week 7. But if we just forget that one ever happened, and do the average for the 3 weeks I do have data for, we come up with an average of 11099 per week. Not too shabby. However, since I had a major slack week, I don't feel right giving myself an A. Grade: B
Exercise - did better this 4 weeks than I did for the last one, so I guess that's progress. I only met the goal once, during the second week. My average for all 4 weeks was 463.3 calories--less than half of the goal. Grade: C-
Weight loss - This was a time of ups and downs. I apparently put on a lot of water weight when I upped the calories, and it gave me fits. At my highest weigh-in (at the end of my slack diet week), I was 208. Barely a week later at the last weigh-in, I was 205.2. Tracking this by gain/loss per week, we have:
In the end, I was left with a net loss of 0.3 lbs. This falls far short of the 6.5 lb. goal. The lesson to be learned here is that I should not give up and go on a week-long eating binge just because I gained a pound or two. It's probably water, and it will come back off. Just relax. Grade: D
Water intake - I did much better with this than I did in past weeks, though I only started tracking it on the report card this time around. According to records, I only met the daily goal once. For the three counted weeks, I averaged about 0.4L per day. Grade: C-
Vitamin - I took 12 vitamins in 21 days. Over half, but not by much. Grade: C-
So...probably around a C- average. Not very good progress. If I were a kid coming home with that report card, I'd be so grounded.
SHORT TERM GOALS
I've added a measurements category, since I feel like I should be tracking that now.
Diet - less than 10,500 calories per week.
Exercise - Burn 1000 calories in deliberate exercise. Also, follow the Fat-Burning Workout plan every other day for these 4 weeks. Cardio work on some of the off days.
Weight loss - I'm going to be conservative here, so as to not set myself up for disappointment. 5.4 lbs in 4 weeks. (this will take me to 199.8, which is under 200, dammit. It's been a year since I've seen that first number a one. Maybe 2 years.)
Inch loss - I'd like to lose 2 inches, somewhere. The body parts I'll be measuring are bust, waist, hips, thighs, calves, and upper arms. As long as there's a cumulative loss of 2 inches in all those measurements, I'll be happy.
Water intake - 2L per day
Vitamin - Take one daily
Yeah, that's it. So now we're ready to start into the 3rd 4-week stretch. Wish me luck (...and willpower, and strength).
My goals aren't as fully formed as Rob's are, and neither is my plan. He's much more disciplined than I am in dieting and exercise, and...well, everything. So I suspect my entries are going to look a little more haphazard than his.
Ultimately, I want to have the body I had in high school...which is ironic, because when I was actually in high school, I hated my body. My ass was too big, my chest too small. I had a little bit of a tummy below my waistline, a little bit of a double chin. Looking back on pictures 11 years and a kid later, I can only say that I was a freakin' idiot. I may have had bad hair and unfortunate fashion sense, but my body was beautiful. I would kill to have that ass back.
Yes, I am aware that I will never have that ass back. Even if when I get back to my weight at 17, twelve years of gradually declining activity and the stresses of child-bearing will have taken their toll. My skin elasticity is not what it was then, and there will be much sagging where there has been much fat for all these years. I am a realist.
So what do I hope to accomplish? My goals are simple. I want to climb flights of stairs without getting winded. I want to shop for clothes without resorting to the plus size section. I want to not feel so tired all the time. I want to feel attractive. I want to teach healthy habits to my son. I want to have more children. And I want to live to see my grandchildren get married someday.
Translating that into more concrete goals is hard for me, but let's give it a shot. In the next year, I want to lose 1-2 lbs a week. I also want to significantly increase my activity level, to the point where working out is a part of the daily routine, not a rare departure from it.
Breaking it down to the numbers...
Ultimate goals:
weight: 130 lbs.
clothing size: 10 to 12
Routine exercise schedule: at least 6 hours a week of deliberate exercise
Short-term goals (next 4 weeks):
Stick to a 1000 1200 calorie diet
At least 2 hours per week of deliberate exercise
end weight: 212
I hit the road to better fitness tomorrow.
This is my first post to my new fitness journal. My goal is to get my weight under 200lbs while becoming more fit at the same time. My diet will change as I go along. For now I'm going to stick to a ketogenic diet in an effort to lose some weight fast in the beginning. I don't know right now how long I will stay with that because part of my goal is to improve my biking and running, and while ketogenic diets work great for weight loss, it's difficult to sustain an intense workout routine without carbs.
While my diet will vary, my workouts will be pretty constant. I intend to lift weights 4 times a week, and do some kind of cardio every day. My cardio includes both running and cycling. During the summer, I'll add swimming in as a third cardio. When spring and summer get here, I plan to enter some races both to check my progress, and to help keep me motivated. Last year I entered a race that had a 28 mile bike ride followed immediately by a 5k run, and though neither of those distances is great, together they were very challenging.
One of my first steps will be to get into good enough shape to ride in the MS150 this summer. My long term goal is to compete in a triathlon. There are several around here during the summer of varying lengths, so I may try to get in shape for a short one as early as this summer. We'll just have to wait and see how I progress.
So welcome to The Workout Diaries.