Gaming the system.

So after much deliberation (all right, a little deliberation), I’ve decided to go back to daily weigh-ins. The last month has not been particularly kind to me, weight-loss-wise. I think that I just have a personality that wants to game the system. In other words, I like to take the easy way out. When I only weigh in on Wednesdays, I have a habit of overdoing things on, say, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and occasionally Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays, because I have time to “make it up.”  Then, of course, I spend Monday and Tuesday scrambling to lose the weight I gained in the last few days. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t.

But even if I was losing weight every week, it would still be a bad policy. It’s not a terrible thing that I’ve started relaxing a little bit about my diet; eating 1800 calories a day instead of 1500 a day is going to make things easier to maintain. But when that’s combined with several 3000-3500 calorie days, it’s no good. And I need that accountability to help me eat right, and keep going to the gym even when I don’t want to, and to push my workouts from mediocre to good. I hopped on the elliptical for an hour yesterday, and I’ve done the elliptical many times in the last 10 months. But yesterday, I pushed it to a new level. By the end, I had sweaty spots within the sweaty spots on my shirt. It felt great to kick my ass again.

I’m also getting excited about the weather turning and the clocks changing. That first week is always rough, because waking up before dawn is depressing and awful. But being able to run outside after work again is a huge relief. It’s been great having a gym membership but having nothing to see but Fox News is not great motivation to hit the gym. Even if I’m running on the same path I’ve run on a hundred times before, just being outside is enjoyable.

Speaking of running outside, I’m excited for the Urban Adventure Run I’m going on tonight. Basically, you start at a running store, and you’re given a map with a bunch of local businesses that are handing out raffle tickets, from ¼ mile to 3 miles away, then you get an hour to hit as many of them as possible and get back for the raffle, where there’s food and beer. Seriously, what more motivation do you need to get out and run?

Finally, I’m 17 days away from my second half-marathon, and the first that I’m going to attempt to run. I’m not supremely confident, if only because a combination of laziness and a nasty flu has set back my training. Still, I’m going to go 13.1 miles, whether I have to run it or walk it. I probably won’t make the pace I was hoping for when I first signed up, but I’ll have gone 13.1 miles further than I did on the last March 24^th, and that’s a win.

Not up to task.

I think I won the Super Bowl of eating yesterday.

All joking aside, yesterday was not a good day, eating-wise, for me.  I went to a Super Bowl party, and this party included a Super Bowl cookoff.  And people cooked it off, that’s for sure.  There was a ton of amazing food, and I ate all of it.  Maybe not all of it, but my share and your share and a few other people’s shares too.  And there was no good reason for it.  Not that the food wasn’t good; there were some amazing things there.  And I wanted to try all the dishes, but that wasn’t really the problem either.

The problem was that I just kept going.  I packed myself so damn full that I felt sick, and then I kept eating.  I could easily have tried every dish, had some snacks and treats, and still have avoided Fatmageddon.  But I didn’t.  I actively chose not to eat the way I should.  Now, of course, I have to really think about the answer to why that is.

I know what I should be doing.  I spent seven months doing exactly what I should and I had the results to prove it.  Since then, though, I’ve been in a holding pattern.  I’m not doing all the things that got me to 400 pounds, but I’m also not doing all the things that got me to 270.  So what’s changed?  Why don’t I seem to have the strength that I had in the beginning?

Really, I’m finding that I’m not challenging myself the way that I did before.  I could have held back yesterday, tried everything there was to try, indulge just enough to satisfy myself, and I could have felt good about it at the end of the day.  But I wanted to eat a pigs in a blanket two at a time more than I wanted to lose weight this week. That would be fine if I felt like I’m where I want to be, but I’m definitely not.  I’m getting complacent and self-satisfied, and that’s not OK with me.

This has extended to my workouts too.  I spent about a week and a half doing very little – first because I was on a trip and I was lazy, and then because I had a nasty flu that forced me to take it easy – and it’s taking a long time to get back.  I had plans for a six-mile run on Saturday and that didn’t happen.  Oh, I started running intending to run six miles, but at the two-mile mark I started walking. In the end, it turned into a relatively good workout; I alternated walking and running, walking around a quarter mile followed by running a half-mile or a mile.  But I was running six and seven miles before and to pull up at a third of that is frustrating.

The worst part is that I can do it.  I believe that I could have pushed through if I wanted to.  Part of the problem is that it only took a couple of weeks for my body to completely forget how to regulate its speed.  I can run at a ten-minute pace fairly comfortably, but for some reason when I started running on Saturday, I was pushing up to a 9:15-9:30 pace.  So I can’t say I’m too surprised that I sputtered out after two miles.

So what’s the solution?  I’ve lost 140 pounds, and I have at least 50 to go.  To do this, I have to work out a lot, eat things that aren’t terrible for me and eat a normal amount of them, and…well yeah, that’s it.  Like my favorite refrain, “Simple, not easy.”  I just need to do it.

Anyway, there is one bit of positive news to report.  I bought myself a new pair of jeans this weekend, size 38x32, which is my first pair of jeans in the 30s in at least ten years.  This is all well and good, but if I don’t get my ass in gear I’m going to be back in the 40s, and I have no interest in that.  What I want is to be closer to 200 pounds than 300 pounds.  I want to feel like I’m pushing myself, not like I’m giving less than my best. That’s going to come down to me.

Walls.

Loyal readers, you may have noticed something amiss. Something askew. Basically, I’ve been slacking about as hard as I’m capable.  Really, I’ve wasted the entire last month and it’s time to stop.

It started around Christmas. I didn’t have a great Christmas, diet and exercise-wise, which by itself is not a particularly big deal.  I lost the weight I had gained fairly quickly, and in the week after the new year I was back on track.  Then last weekend happened.  I went down to Anaheim for a work conference and I just went off the rails.  Pizza and chips and beer and liquor and all manner of other unhealthy things, along with workouts that could be described generously as cursory, led to a large gain that I haven’t even figured yet. 

Once I got home, the problems continued.  I got stuck in a deep funk, and those who know me know that I’m prone to bouts with depression.  I wasn’t in a dangerous place, just one where I wanted to hide away from the world and everyone in it.  This usually is in conjunction with unhealthy eating and a lack of any motivation.  To be fair, I did a decent job of keeping things in range, but I haven’t undone the damage yet.

Finally, my body spent the last two days holding the line before giving in this morning and letting loose a nasty chest cold/flu that has just sapped every bit of energy, except for the part of me that wants to eat.  For some reason, when I’m sick, my body either has no interest in eating or I want to eat everything in sight.  This one is unfortunately the latter.  Luckily, I have lots of good foods around that will keep me full.  A couple of recommendations: La Tortilla Factory’s high-fiber tortillas (I know, I’ve talked about these before) have only 80 calories with 12 grams of fiber and 8 grams of protein each.  And All-Bran Buds, in 1/3 of a cup, have 13 grams of fiber and 3 grams of protein.  These are the foods you want to eat to get full and stay full.

Finally, I’ve decided that I’m officially stopping the daily weigh-ins.  I’ve been weighing in every day for eight months now and I’ve gotten to the point that I know what I need to do to lose weight. I may not do those things all the time, but I know what they are.  Also, I’m getting to the weight where weight loss is going to be a slower process, and I still get frustrated when I see a gain.  Those are going to happen more now, and weekly weigh-ins will keep me more sane. 

I’ve come a long way, but now comes the hard part.  I’ve hit my first wall, and if Warrior Dash taught me anything, it’s that I need help getting over walls. 

Bad, no and further.

Another holiday season has come to an end, and the question that a large number of people ask (or at least ask themselves) is, how did you do?  Did you make healthy choices?  Are you closer to or further (farther?  I never know) from your weight-loss goals?

The answer:  Bad, no, and further (farther?  Damn!).

I didn’t go off the deep end or anything, and I have some things that I can point to as successes, but by and large, I failed this holiday season.  Over the last seven months, I’ve had a fairly iron will, and my slip-ups have been isolated and short-lived.  Not this time.  I ate badly.  Not just a few bad foods, but I really just threw out every rule that I had.  I ate candy and Mexican dip and cookies and all manner of treats that I usually can resist, and my workouts were spotty to say the least.  I did work out, probably five or six times since I left for my break on the 21^st, but I can’t say that I did my best.

The most surprising thing wasn’t that I had a fall-off-the-wagon moment – those are a nearly-universal occurrence for people trying to lose weight.  What was shocking is how easily I fell back into all my bad habits.  Luckily, this time binging wasn’t a huge concern.  Eating 1500-2000 calories a day has shrunk my stomach enough that I can’t binge very effectively.  However, mindless eating was a huge problem, and eating when I had the slightest urge was an issue.  When I started adding up the calories that I was eating, it was just shocking.  Eating 3000, 4000, even 5000 calories in a day is not that difficult when you eat without thinking.  The worst part is, I know that I wasn’t eating as badly as I did when I was a fat fatty.  Then again, it takes a lot of calories to support a 400-pound body at rest, and even more to gain weight at that size. 

In the end, though, I’m not that bad off.  Despite my best efforts, I’m only 2.2 pounds heavier than I was on the 21^st, from 279.2 to 281.4.  And my terrible terrible eating means that this week should be quite fruitful on the weight-loss front.  Also, my running accomplishments have continued over the break, beginning with Christmas Eve.  As many of my readers will recall, until Thanksgiving of this year, I had never run more than a mile at any point in my life.  In addition to that, the one full mile I’d run in ten years, back in the summer, was over 11 minutes.  And I hadn’t been burning up the track.  The work is finally starting to pay off, though.  On Christmas Eve, I ran six miles in a row, and I did it in 58:58.  Not breaking any records, but that’s six miles in less than 10 minutes each. And yesterday morning, I ran my first sub-30 minute 5K, in 29:07. 

So it’s back on the horse!  The Hop Hop Half Marathon is March 24^th and I want to run the whole thing.  I know that I have some runners that read this blog, so if you have any advice on a training plan, let me know.

But now, I’m back at work, which is incredibly helpful.  I can’t say I’m happy to be back, but a scheduled workday is a hell of a silver lining.

Goods not as advertised.

At what point did running become somewhat easy?  Three weeks ago, if you asked me if I could run a mile, I’d tell you that it’s like walking down a dark alley in a bad neighborhood at night: I’d probably survive, but it wouldn’t be a pretty thing to see and it’s best left avoided.  Somehow, in less than three weeks, I’ve run two separate 5Ks, I’ve run a 5K on the dreaded demon treadmill, and last weekend, a 4.3-mile run.  In under 10-minute pace, no less.  I still haven’t figured out this runner’s high thing.  Either it’s bullshit or I’m not yet crazy enough to run far enough to experience it.  But I can run for 42:38 straight so far, and it’s just getting easier.  That’s not to say I’ll be running the Holiday Half this weekend, but it’s a nice start.

So Monday was my birthday, and as I’d planned, I attempted to make a day of it.  After hitting the gym and running a (fairly easy) 33-minute 5K, I hit the Jack in the Box for what I remembered to be some delicious grub: a Supreme Breakfast Croissant, a chicken sandwich, and two tacos.  As I ate them, I noticed something a little disconcerting.  They just weren’t that good.  The results for the rest of the food I had that day were mixed.  Kettle Chips Sea Salt and Vinegar were exactly as good as I remembered (so damn good), fruit pies were decent but not good enough to waste 450 calories on, and Chinese buffet was similarly just OK. 

I’m finding that there are a lot of foods that I used to convince myself that I love that are just not very good.  It’s a bit of a scary thought, especially since I was the first to accuse people of lying when they claimed not to enjoy their old faves.  But it’s true.  I didn’t have any McDonald’s on Monday, surprisingly, but I can’t imagine I would love it.  I can make a better burger.  I bet I could make better Chinese pretty easily.  I make damn good food and I feel better after I eat it.  You know what eating 5000 calories does to you?  I know what it does to me.  It makes me sluggish, and irritable, and uncomfortable.  I don’t like feeling any of those ways. 

So as I mentioned, Sunday is the Holiday Half.  It’s going to be a walking event for sure, but the 22^nd is my first shot at upping my number.  The running club I’m in has an event planned for that day that involves running a 1.5-mile loop as many times as one can in 60 minutes.  I certainly want to run 4.5, but my goal is to push myself to finish six miles in that hour.  Can I do it?  I don’t know.  I’ve never run six miles before, and I’ve only run sub-10 minute pace once in my life.  But if I come to the start/finish line after my third lap and I’m on pace, you can bet I’ll have a go at it. 

It’s kind of strange to think that I’m slowly turning into a “runner”.  Even as I’ve begun running, I still don’t feel like a runner.  I know that there’s no set definition and if I run I’m a runner and all that stuff.  But I feel like there’s some disconnect between myself and the people that I identify as “runners.”  For some reason, I see runners as those who are consumed by running.  Is that true?  Do they hang out with the other runners talking about splits and wearing their very short shorts?  I only see them at running events, so maybe they have entire lives that I don’t know about and they are actual human beings and I’m an asshole for treating them like automatons.  Then I read my previous paragraph and realize it was all about split times, though not about very short shorts.  So be warned, I might be buying some very very short shorts soon.

Self-doubt.

I made the most awesome pulled pork yesterday.  Seriously you guys, just amazing.  Also, I’m fairly sure that North Carolina barbecue might be the best.  It’s the vinegar, I think. 

So far, so good for my holiday plan.  I’m actually making myself eat 1500 calories a day, which sounds silly, I know.  In fact, yesterday after dinner I had to have a banana with two tablespoons of peanut butter (note: peanut butter and banana sandwich?  Best sandwich in existence), and then I still had to have eight Wheat Thins just to put me over.  I really don’t think I’m starving myself either.  I haven’t done this for a while, but here’s what I had to eat yesterday:

Breakfast: A Thomas’ Light Whole Wheat English Muffin, egg, Canadian bacon slice, and a slice of Kraft 2% milk American cheese.  Total: 238 calories, 9 grams fat, 8 grams fiber, 18 grams protein.

That keeps me fairly satisfied until lunch.

Lunch:  Salad (romaine lettuce, tomato, jalapeno, red pepper, mushrooms, red onion) and eight ounces of seasoned chicken breast.  Total: 352 calories, 6 grams fat, 7 grams fiber, 58 grams protein.

That kept me going through the end of the day and my workout after work.

Dinner: Seven ounces pulled pork shoulder, Near East Parmesan Couscous mix, steamed peas.  Total: 547 calories, 8 grams fat, 4 grams fiber, 49 grams protein.

So at this point, I’m at 1137 calories, and I’m not really hungry.  Still, I grab myself the aforementioned peanut butter and banana and Wheat Thins and ended up at a decent 1506 for the day.  It’s hard when I’m not really that hungry.  It’s the right move though.  I don’t really get hungry on a given day, but a streak of five or six 1200-calorie days in a row wears me down, even if I don’t turn into a ravenous beast. 

I feel like I’m getting to a point where things are starting to really normalize.   I don’t mean that I’m done losing weight.  Far from it; my weight loss seems to be holding up just fine.  But it’s all becoming routine, which is both good and bad.  I don’t dread the gym, I have no problem eating well, it’s just my new normal.  That’s a great thing.  I just don’t want to get complacent.  Yesterday was both a good workout and a bad one.  I burned plenty of calories, so in that sense it was good, but I feel like my effort just wasn’t what I wanted.  Not a big deal; not every day can be a winner, but the treadmill broke me a little bit.  I got on there fully planning to run the entire 5K loop, but after a mile I had to pull it back and walk/run the rest. 

There’s a few reasons.  First, I’m terrified of the damn treadmill.  My balance on there is getting better, but if I watch the TVs for more than 20 seconds or so I start drifting to one side or the other and I have to swerve back to the middle, which makes me look like an insane person.  Or at least very clumsy.  Second, I was blazing hot.  Shockingly, running outside in late November is different than running on a treadmill inside a gym.  It didn’t help that I was wearing long sleeves because I’m an idiot. 

I’ve got this voice in the back of my head the last couple of days that is trying to tell me there’s no way I can pull off another 5K.  I’m not sure where it comes from.  There’s no reason that I can’t do it.  I just did it four days ago.  But my brain keeps trying to convince me otherwise.  I don’t usually encounter much self-doubt, so this is new for me.  I still think that I can do it, but earlier this week I knew I could.  Not crippling self-doubt or anything, but just that stupid voice.

In other news, I’m under 290 today for the first time in a long time.  Since I didn’t weigh myself from February of 2001 (state wrestling meet, 231 pounds) until I hit 440, basically all my numbers will be “first time in forever” until then.  So enjoy some more months of that.  The good news is that this clears the way for me to have my cheat day on my birthday.  Oh my god it’s going to be amazing.  I’m working on my menu for the day, mostly just from wild hairs I get for certain foods.  So far, I’ve got dinner worked out: Chinese buffet.  It’s the shittiest food and it’s going to be epic.  Steamed crab legs and chicken skewers for days at that place.  Also, I’m going to have a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  It’s going to be awesome.   What can I say?  I’m a man of simple tastes.

I can run.

I think it’s good to plan ahead for things when you’re trying to lose weight.  Holidays aren’t a huge trigger for me, but I do love me some baked goods.  So I might as well have some semblance of a plan, even if I don’t carry a one-sheet around with me everywhere.

My holiday plan?  Do what I’ve been doing.  I have a cheat day planned for my birthday, and that will be awesome…for one day.  Then it’s back on.  I’ve been taking it a little easy the last week because I was going a little off the deep end (1200-1400 calories per day, 60-100 minutes of working out every day without rest days) and I feel refreshed.  I’ve been shortening my workouts and took a couple of rest days, and I’ve been eating between 1700-2000 calories each day.  Today is the start of another push though, but I’m just reminding myself to keep it under control.  My goal is to make myself eat a minimum of 1500 calories each day and have at least one rest day per week.  Will my weight loss slow a little?  Maybe.  But I figure it’s worth it to make sure that I continue losing and avoid burnout.

In other news, I was at the Hot Buttered Run on Sunday.  The Hot Buttered Run was my first ever 5K last year, and this is me running for the camera, struggling to a 45:25, probably around 385 pounds at the time:

And here's me running at the finish of this year's Hot Buttered Run, just because:

Last year, I was at a 45:25, finishing 420^th out of 570 runners.  This year, I actually ran the entire thing.  I finished in 32:20, 306^th out of 873 runners.  The time is really immaterial, though.  I ran, without stopping, for five kilometers.  I’m not entirely certain, but I’m almost sure that I’ve never run farther than a mile in my entire life before Sunday morning.  I’ve heard that the leap to running for distance is really that, a leap.  I haven’t actually been running for the last few months at all.  I’ve been dealing with knee tendinitis, probably caused by dropping over 300 pounds on my knee for years.

Sunday wasn’t really supposed to be any different.  I know I’m in better shape than I’ve been in almost my entire life.  I’ve been walking, sure, but I’ve been walking for distance, or walking for speed, or when I’m at the gym, ramping up the incline.  But the plan was to jog for a bit, wait for my knee to hurt and my lungs to have enough, and then settle in to a quick walk until the end.  I was shooting for a sub-40 5K, basically.

So when the race started, I settled into a decently-paced jog.  I actually had a goal for this.  During my first Hot Buttered Run, I made myself jog for about the first half-mile, probably my competitive streak kicking in.  The goal was to run at least past that point, since come on, I can run that far.  So I’m jogging, and I hit that walking spot and I feel like I’m in good shape.  I’m feeling fairly comfortable, actually, and not much out of breath at all.

Around the three-quarter-mile point is a footbridge with a decent incline to get to it.  I also know that just past the footbridge is the one-mile marker.  I figure I’ll push my way up the bridge and the downhill should be plenty of time to get my breath back and at least make the mile.  Maybe I can beat my old time of 11:20 back in August.  I get to the one-mile mark and check my time: 10:43.  Sweet – I not only beat my old time, but I’m feeling pretty good still.  So I decide to push it a little further.  There’s an extended hill coming up that goes under the I-5 bridge and up to Esther Short Park.  At this point, I’m still not thinking that I can finish the race.  My thinking is that I want to make it up that hill.  I keep thinking that it’s going to get to be too much.  But I keep climbing the hill and while it’s more difficult than flat ground, by no means am I feeling like I can’t go. 

At this point, I start thinking to myself that maybe I can actually do this.  By the time I hit the two-mile mark, I figured I had to do it.  I mean, quitting at 2 ½ miles would just be awful, right?  So I finished.  I suppose the end of that story is a bit anticlimactic.  But while I was tired, and still sore today, I feel great.  Spinning tonight is going to SUUUUUUUCK, but I’ll be back at it this Saturday.  I have a run in Ridgefield Saturday morning and I intend to run the whole thing. 

I don’t think I’m to the point yet where I’m going to start shooting for any certain time, but I’ve got some goals in mind.  I want to run a 5K under 30 minutes.  I want to run a 10K.  And I want to run a mile faster than I could in high school.  My best time in high school was a 6:06.  I think I could probably do an 8:30 or so mile now. I don’t think I’m ever going to be running a sub-20 5K or anything, but here’s a horrible secret:  I actually kind of liked running.  In the last few months, I haven’t really been doing workouts that challenge me mentally. 

I’m hoping that this is the kind of thing I need to snap me out of the rut I’ve been in, since the rut has been almost entirely mental.  My workouts have been good, my eating has been good, but I just haven’t been feeling it lately.  My most rewarding workouts are the ones where I have to fight through when I really want to quit.  Running does that for me.  So maybe I will set a goal for this weekend.  I don’t know that sub-30 is something I can do yet, but I can beat 32:20.  I may not be a runner, but I can run.