Adjusted Reality

This week started out so well…

I lost 3 lbs in 4 days.  I was doing really well with my calorie counts.  I wasn’t touching sugar.  I was BACK, yo.

Then, we had company fun day.  Company fun day was pizza and bowling.  I planned accordingly by eating a BIG SALAD before we went, allowing myself ONE piece of pizza so I didn’t feel deprived.  That went fine.  Then there was cake.  Without thinking, I got a tiny piece and started munching on it and then realized – oh crap – no sweets.  I only ate half but still, it sucked.

Then the rest of the day sorta unfolded as a comedy of health errors.  We were at one of those big fun centers which had rock climbing (yay!) but they weren’t open until 4pm (boo!) and it was only 2:30.  After a game of laser tag with half the company (yay – and I actually worked up a pretty good sweat), I still had an hour to kill, so we played a card game, and I grabbed myself one beer.  Then, I went to go rock climb, and they said that if I had ANY alcohol that day I couldn’t climb (I mean, come on – one corona – it’s practically water), so I went home and quickly did an arms and legs circuit and called it + lazer tag my workout for the day.  And then a little more drinking ensued.  Adding up my calories the next day, I was at about 2k.  Oops.

Friday I was mindblowingly grumpy and tired and HUNGRY after work and we went to a buffet where I ate very healthy, but just way too much.  I ate 1k calories there, and 800 calories the REST OF THE DAY.  Again, oops.  If I had been better the day before I wouldn’t have worried about it but another high calorie day in a row was no bueno.

Saturday I did my long run, so I expected to eat a little more.  I actually honestly didn’t eat that much – I had about a 300 calorie breakfast, 200 calorie snack after the run, maybe a 500 calorie dinner, 500 calories of alcohol and maybe 500 calories of drunken munchies.  Considering I burnt about 1600 and ingested about 2000, I’m not really complaining.   And I didn’t even do too badly – I ate a tiny little street taco and some beet fries – it’s not like I had a super sized jack in the box combo or anything – but in a perfect world I might have moved the eating earlier in the day.  C’est la vie.  When my run ended around 5pm and I just can’t eat much before it, it’s NBD.

Sunday, I had a CRAVING.  One of my biggest comfort foods.  And I had to have it.  Everything in the house looked like crap.  So I leveled with myself.  I wasn’t going to head to Denny’s and get myself a club sandwich and fries, but I was going to recreate it at home.  We had some plain white bread left over from the roomies so I toasted 2 slices instead of 3, piled on turkey and pre-cooked bacon, added the lettuce and tomato, and used light mayo.  I got some really good quality oven fries.  Instead of the 1100+ calories it would have cost at Dennys, I’m clocking it at just about 600.  And my craving was totally satisfied.  Bonus!

Then, my Zliten hadta have some BBQ.  We tried out a new place, and I got brisket (though I had to throw half of it away because it was sooooo fatty), turkey (best turkey ever), and these really adorable tiny sides of coleslaw and mashed potatoes.  I’m thinking this was also about 700 calories max.  I munched a little in the evening, but mostly veggies and fruit (there may have been some bagel chips but whatevs).  The day in total was probably about 1500-1600 calories.

So, by the numbers eating-wise:

Average per day: 1657

Goal: 1500

Difference: 157

This week I was actually kinda dragging hiney on the workouts a bit.  The runs I rocked like a hurricane, but I just am in this weird state where I’m RESENTING cross training.  I’m kinda bored with DDR, I’m not ready for Jillian’s 30 day shred pain, I don’t seem to make it to the gym to do the arc trainer… I don’t want to run 5 days a week so I’ll have to figure something out.

Then again, last week was weird and my cross training fell on a) Snowpocolipse Austin so I didn’t want to go to the gym and then b) Fun Day Fiasco where my plan got ruined by one stupid little beer.  Should I have bucked up and done what I needed to do anyway?  Yeah.  But considering I’ve got the routine of “get off work at normal time, go to gym” down pretty well, I’m not too worried going forward.  I am successfully incorporating more strength work into my days so I’ll take that as a bonus.

By the days:

Monday: 6 mile slower tempo run @ 57:50 and legs at the gym – 844 calories burnt

Tuesday: crossfit 30 minute workout (full body), yoga 20 mins – 328 calories burnt

Wednesday: 3.5 miles with a timed mile in the middle (7:07!!  fastest mile ever!!  and so close to under 7 I can taste it!!  I like exclamation marks!!) and abs. – 532 calories

Thursday: lazer tag and an arms/legs circuit – 452 calories

Friday: off

Saturday: 14 mile run @ 2:37:34 (yep, fastest mile and longest run within 3 days – I love it!) – 1607 calories burnt

Average burnt per day: 537

So – the final totals:

Calories in avg per day: 1757 (+100 adjusted for my horrible tracking skills)

Calories out avg per day: 537

Calories per day: 1220

…which is right on the money, actually.  And it shows, as I am down 1.8 lbs today from where I was at last Monday (162.2, and today, I’m 160.4).  I expect that this trend will continue.  The only snag – it’s my birthday Wednesday, and we’ve got plans to go out to dinner that night proper, and celebrationses going on Saturday.  As long as I confine it to those two days and be good the rest of the week, I should be ok.

Last Week’s Goals:

-Taking it one week at a time (food). Check.  I was a little bummed until I did the numbers.  This week is a completely different animal and different approach.

-Average of 1500 calories per day.  Exception, Saturday.  See below.  Not quite check, but it worked out with the increased activity.

-No sweets this week besides sugar free popsicles and fruit.  Not that I expect to be giving up my 1-2 hershey kisses every few days forever, I just need to detox.  Almost check.  I violated this rule for half a slice of cake and a few creme de menthe hershey kisses (yeah, um…yeah).  Not bad, but not great.

-Sticking to the food plan I made, and stick to healthy snacks of veggies, fruit, pistachios, and beef jerky.  Check up until Friday, then it fell apart.  Need to do better.

-Taking it in two week chunks (workouts).  I’m modifying this a little bit.  I’m not going to be able to long run for a few weeks due to schedule commitments, so it’s short distance training (for an upcoming 5k) and strength until the end of the month!

-Trying to NOT get lazy like last time and decrease my mileage to just about 0.  Total check.  I’m loving the running, cannot foresee that changing.

-Continuing with 3 runs per week.  One short speed run, one medium non-lazy run, and either a loooong run or another medium, slower paced run.  This week, I started with a 6 mile run around 9:40 minute miles, Wednesday I plan on making a stab at a 6:50-ish minute mile sandwiched between warmup and cooldown miles, and Saturday, I want to get out and attempt 14 miles (no matter the speed).  I am considering this pre-training for the marathon by getting used to being on my feet for a long time.  Total and complete check!

-I plan on alternating high mileage weeks (like this week) with extra strengthy weeks (next week).  On a super strengthy week, I plan to try to do 3 full body strength sessions, whereas on super mile-y weeks I’ll do 2.  I will figure out the particulars of this next week.  Will alternate according to schedule, will probably do loooong runs on average every 3 weeks.

-Two cross training cardio sessions of at least 30 mins.  DDR, arc trainer, etc.  If it’s super mellow like biking or walking – at least 60 mins.  Err, sorta check.  It was ok this week due to almost 3 hours of running Saturday, but on non-long run days, I must do better.

This week’s plan:

Food

-Really watch it the rest of the week, with planned splurges Wednesday and Saturday.

-No sweets beyond popsicles and fruit except Wednesday and Saturday.

-Since I’m not long running, try to go as low as possible (while not driving myself batty) on non-splurge days – 1200.

Workouts-

-Three runs – one speedwork, one tempo, and one easy.  Still figuring out the mileage but want to try and come in around 15 for the week.

-Weights, weights, weights.  One body part after each run, then at least 2 days pushing everything else hard that I didn’t ruin the day before.  I want to be SORE by the end of the week (in a good way).

-One cross training session = adventure race and dancing on Saturday.  That totally counts.

-One cross training session – at least 30 mins of arc trainer.  Since my other day is loosey goosey I want to get some good calorie burn here.

And, I do believe I’ve prattled on for long enough.  I’m seeing that my proverbial dance card is a lot more booked lately, so I will update and blog as I can.  I have a lot of good topics in queue, just not enough time to hammer out posts.  It is good to be busy though!

What are you up to this week?  Can anyone assure me that 31 isn’t the end of the world? **grin**

To be quite honest, it’s late, and I was out of inspiration.  It’s been a long day of schedule-wrangling, planning, navigating the craziness, and plotting and scheming… interspersed with leezard bathing, feeding, calcium-supplementing and getting scratched.  Add on that a sufficiently butt kicking workout, more leezard bathing and calcium-ing, foraging some food for dinner, ignoring all the sweets in the house (made it 3 days so far!!!)… I just haven’t had time to consider a post.

I asked my dearest Zliten for an idea, and even though HE has had a long day too (12 hours of work), he came up with a great topic – one that is near and dear to his heart – SLEEEEEPYTIME.  I was going to dedicate half the post to how wonderful he is, however, I’m pretty sure I have quite enough to say on sleep and he’s not getting out of that idea THAT easy.  So there.

Ah, sleep.  We have had a very on again off again relationship.  As a child, I staved you off for as long as I could.  I begged for later bedtimes, and afternoon kindergarten.  Unlike most 5 year olds, I had a 10pm bedtime, simply because my parents gave up the fight.  I was stubborn and I just wouldn’t sleep.  By the time I was 16, I was regularly sleeping only about 4 hours a night.  Sometimes less if I had a lot of homework.  I was your typical overachiever in school, sports, 2 jobs, and I liked hanging out with my friends every night.  The thing I chose to give up: sleep.  I would generally save up my trigonometry homework until the night before the test (when we had to turn it in), drink a BUNCH of caffeine, do the entire chapter, and use that as double duty to study for the tests.  Hey, it worked.

I continued this trend through college.  I would put off my homework partying and going out and working and doing theatre stuff, and then midterms would come.  And I would just up my caffeine intake, stay up for the majority of a week (I think my record was 70-some hours vertical), get through the tests and presentations and projects, crash for a while, then start it over.  It was a game to me.  A formula to plug in the right number.  24 -x-y = z.  x= the minimum amount of hours needed to maintain a good (mostly A’s) GPA.  y = the minimum amount of sleep I could get by with.  z, the result, was the amount of hours I could have fun.  And that was the most important thing to me.

Sleep continued to be for the weak, as I would say, in my early professional life.  Except for the glorious, glorious 2 years where I got to work after lunch until just after summer sunset (not that I want to go back to the JOB, but I loved the schedule), I was riddled with a normal 9-5 (or close) schedule.  Except for a lot of years, it was more like 9-9.  I’m a girl that’s just not typically willing to give up my fun time, so in general, I’d go to bed between 2-3am, get up at 8:30, and do it again.  I would like to, for the record, maintain that I never had anything stronger than caffeine in my system.  No amphetamines here.  I just really didn’t see the need of a full night of rest.  That was for other people.

Nothing put me to bed properly until running.  Within 6 months of my first miracle mile around the track and dying, I went from staying up until around 1am to crawling into bed at 11pm.  I weaned myself off caffeine.  It is now currently 10:20pm and I’m actually thinking that I need to wrap up this blog because I miss my bed.  I regularly sleep at least 8 hours a day.  I rarely sleep past 10 even on weekends, and I regularly sleep less on weekend since I’ll stay up late, and my body will just get up because I’ve banked enough on the weekdays.  Weird, huh?

As much as I still feel the drive of having 24 useable hours in each day (extra props if you can identify the movie – hint, it comes from a cute gal in a plaid skirt), something in my life that is a priority finally has also made sleep a priority.   To have the energy to make good food choices, not have to use stimulants to get through the day, to have the energy to ask my body to continue to grow in strength and speed in athletic feats… I just gotta have my rest.  It also definitely helps getting into work and hit the ground running instead of needing the morning to get my eyes open.  And this sort of propagates the whole early to bed and early to rise – once you start doing one the other generally follows.

Zliten, however, has always been a fan of sleep.  He had very vivid dreams, sometimes even lucid ones, and just enjoyed being asleep and getting enough rest.  We would differ greatly in our sleep theories, but since he usually had the same type of schedule as I did, and also liked to have his fun, he usually was sleep deprived as well.  Needless to say, he is very happy that we get our proper sleepytimes now.  Sometimes he complains about going to bed so early, but most days he’ll turn the lights off on me out in the living room and tell me to come to bed (I mean, it was already 10:45…).

So, I really have been enjoying getting my required 8 hours.  I hope not to have to change that any time soon!  It’s amazing, after most of my life of deprivation, to be fully and completely rested.  Heck, I go to bed now about when I did in grade school.  I’ve learned to just manage the to do list down to the hours I have – sure, I might not get as much done, but I’m no longer a twitching-from-a-pot-of-coffee zombie doing it.

How about you?  How much sleep do you normally get per night?  Do you think you need 8 hours a night to be healthy?  What’s the longest you’ve stayed up without sleep?

**This post’s pictures brought to you by fukung.net, and things that you might see while sleep deprived. **grin**

Not THAT business time, silly.  The business of getting back to eating like a reasonable human and attempting to lose the half marathon weight, that is.  I’ve been not looking forward to this post for a while.  I like training for races.  I like eating.  I get a kick out of having a crazy appetite (it’s actually refreshing when previously, it was hard for me to get 1500 good healthy calories in).  I don’t like having to have a calorie deficit.  I don’t like feeling weak.  I REALLY don’t like having to turn down yummy treats.

However, it’s time.  On the scale this morning, it smacked me in the face with reality.  162.2.  Um, yeah.  I’m pretty sure SOME of that is bloat as I am right in the throes of TOM, but still.  That is now 7.2 lbs above acceptable, and it’s time to do something about it.  And I’m pretty sure it’s all in my stomach – my jeans don’t fit any different, but my shirts all inexplicably seem shorter.  Ah well, no worries.  It is not long for this world.

The plan is as such.

Food:

-Taking it one week at a time.

-Average of 1500 calories per day.  Exception, Saturday.  See below.

-No sweets this week besides sugar free popsicles and fruit.  Not that I expect to be giving up my 1-2 hershey kisses every few days forever, I just need to detox.

-Sticking to the food plan I made, and stick to healthy snacks of veggies, fruit, pistachios, and beef jerky.

Today’s eats: protein bar for breakfast, peanut butter/strawberry/honey on sprouted grain bread for lunch, half a bag of baby carrots and pistachios for a snack, a peach right before my workout, 4 fat free hot dogs + 2 buns and homemade coleslaw for dinner, and a cup of tea for desert.  B+.  Dinner could have been a *little* healthier, but I wasn’t home and eating until 9 – didn’t want to make anything *too* elaborate.  Coming in at around 1400 calories = it works.

Workouts:

-Taking it in two week chunks.

-Trying to NOT get lazy like last time and decrease my mileage to just about 0.

-Continuing with 3 runs per week.  One short speed run, one medium non-lazy run, and either a loooong run or another medium, slower paced run.  This week, I started with a 6 mile run around 9:40 minute miles, Wednesday I plan on making a stab at a 6:50-ish minute mile sandwiched between warmup and cooldown miles, and Saturday, I want to get out and attempt 14 miles (no matter the speed).  I am considering this pre-training for the marathon by getting used to being on my feet for a long time.

-I plan on alternating high mileage weeks (like this week) with extra strengthy weeks (next week).  On a super strengthy week, I plan to try to do 3 full body strength sessions, whereas on super mile-y weeks I’ll do 2.  I will figure out the particulars of this next week.

-Two cross training cardio sessions of at least 30 mins.  DDR, arc trainer, etc.  If it’s super mellow like biking or walking – at least 60 mins.

The plan for this week is Monday – 6 mile run + legs (done!), Tuesday – 30 mins arc trainer + abs/arms, Wednesday – 3 miles with timed mile in the middle + legs, Thursday – DDR + abs/arm at home, Saturday – 14 mile run.

Mentally:

I just have to remind myself that I have to approach this differently than I have the last 3 months.  I am NOT always allowed to eat when I’m hungry.  I need to retrain my appetite to a smaller quantity of food.  I also need to remember that I don’t constantly have to restrict my food, count my calories, and say no to delicious yummies – it’s just for now.  As much as I’ll be regretting saying this in a few days, it feels good to be back to eating like a normal healthy human and not a calorie compactor.

Wish me luck with the new plan!  I’m seeing a lot of people around the bloggy-sphere rededicating themselves to healthy pursuits – it’s about that time, it seems.  What are YOU starting this week?  What bad habits do you want to break?  What good habits do you want to encourage?

EDIT: Snow day today (2/23) and I’ve been a lazy monster.  No post today.  Just an update.  Still doing good, did a crossfit workout that kicked my butt today instead of the gym, and even with being home most of the day, I have not yet eaten my entire fridge.  Oh yeah, and down 1.4 lbs (160.8).  Took good care of the iguana and tried to stay warm (adventures in snow not having central heat = not fun today).  More tomorrow!

This post was supposed to be a weigh in, a plan, and perhaps some bitching about various things workout and weight loss.  Today is something different.  If you follow me on twitter you probably got some emotionally charged mood swingy slightly cryptic messages, so here is the whole story.

Friday morning, I woke up, grabbed the leezard out of her cage and attempted to put her into her uber special carrying case (which also happens to be the rock band drums box).  She DID_NOT_WANT_TO_GET_IN.  After a few minutes of struggling, we get her in the box, I drove her up to the vet, and after waiting a bit, they decided just to take her back in the box, so I told her to be a good girl and then left for work.

The vet was supposed to call about when to pick her up and then it was lunchtime, and the 3… I ended up in a meeting around 4, and I grabbed my phone.  Zliten called me halfway into it, basically letting me know our options: emergency surgery or euthenasia.  I COULD NOT deal with that right then, so I told him I”d call him back.  I tried to get back into the meeting but my head wasn’t in it.  I excused myself, ran outside, and called Zliten back.  We talked for a while and after he filled me in on what the vet said was wrong (they thought she had a rupture in her stomach) and the chances of recovery (about 20% and about 6 months of pain and suffering even best case) we decided on the unthinkable.

I went back into work, let everyone know what was going on, I tried to finish up what I was doing, but ended up just taking off.  I’m not a crier but I was barely holding myself together.  I came home, poured myself a drink, opened up a new pack of smokes, sat down outside, and started bawling.  Zliten was on his way up to the vet to pick up our leezard, and we were going to bury her in the backyard.  He came home empty handed, as the vet had asked us to come back the next day, as she wanted to do an autopsy to find out exactly what was wrong to help for next time (to which we agreed).

We talked, drank, and said “this sucks” a lot.  A few hours later, the vet called again.  I had almost gotten myself out of being in a completely miserable mood, and I was just like – what now?  Zliten talked to her for an awfully long while and said some very cryptic things, and then hung up.  He let me know that vet had given her the first injection (the one that makes her sleep – just anesthesia), and she just wouldn’t fall asleep.  They gave her another and still she didn’t fall asleep very quick.  They took one last set of x-rays and finally figured it out – she was gravid (full of eggs)!

They put her on a ventilator, and stayed with her.  A few hours later – the vet called back and she was breathing on her own.  She was going to take her to a clinic in South Austin that could monitor her all night, and would call us in the morning.  We proceed to get incredibly drunk, but it didn’t really help.  I didn’t really sleep much.  Around 8:30, we got a call from the vet saying she was up and running around and climbing on things!  We got up and got to the vet, and went and found us a seriously fiesty, awake, and PISSED OFF lizard. The doctor showed us all the x-rays and walked us through what happened, and it all made sense – however, we do think that the x-ray tech might need a little more school, as our doctor took MUCH clearer x-rays.

So, long story short, we have set her up with a nest to lay her eggs, calcium supplements to help her (as laying eggs takes a LOT out of them), and are supposed to give her two baths daily (which I think she is actually starting to like).  We bring her back at lunch for another checkup, but she seems to be doing pretty well.  Hopefully she passes her eggs soon, and she’ll be back to her feisty self.

What a crazy, emotionally draining few days.  I’m so glad it worked out how it worked out, but sheesh – what a scare.  I just wanted to share the story about our crazy leezard just not giving up.  Back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

So, today has been a righteous pisser on most accounts.

First of all, Zliten took our Iguana Donna to the vet because she has not been eating or pooping lately.  I thought the idea of pet health insurance was stupid until today – she cost about 650 dollars today, and will cost somewhere between 200 and 1200 tomorrow depending on if she needs surgery.  Silly thing apparently ate something that’s just not passing, so she’s had everything from  an enema to barium and x-rays to fluid shots.  If she poops tonight, they just need to do some follow up care with her.  If she doesn’t, it’s likely she will need surgery (hence the large dollar range).  As grumbly as I am about the cost, it will be worth it as long as she’s ok.  And we are DEFINITELY going to look into pet health insurance.

Here she is on the scale at the vet – she is 2 lbs exactly!

Probably about five minutes after Zliten drove by the area in the way to the vet – if you haven’t heard already – a plane decided it wanted to come to work in a building very close to where I work/live.  Silly plane, you can’t go to work, you don’t have a job, you don’t belong there!  Before I get a bunch of hate mail about being completely insensitive, I know it’s no laughing matter, but honestly, when it’s so close to home, all you can do is make light of it.  Because the other option is being scared of this kinda crap happening and freaking out about leaving the house, and I am not having that.

If you haven’t actually read the fuckwit’s manifesto, feel free to try here, but honestly?  Let me sum it up – “I don’t understand how to pay taxes and it’s made me make poor decisions and my life sucks and instead of learning from my mistakes, I’m going to instead burn down my house, leave my wife and kid without anything (as I’m sure arson isn’t covered with insurance and neither is suicide), and kill myself in an act of domestic terrorism because I am the adult equivalent of a rebellious teenager and I’ll show them!!!”  Seriously?  Dude?  Grow a pair and deal with your problems in a way that doesn’t cause property damage and screw your family’s future.  Kthx.

We drove by the building again on the way to dinner (after this kind of a day, I’m only human – I ditched the run in favor of some chicken fajitas and a margarita), and it’s just wrecked.  You can see the plane hole from the freeway and instead of the black mirrored exterior it’s just all shattered and broken on that side.  Thank goodness that only 2 people sustained major injuries, 1 is missing, but the current thought is the dude was playing hookey as no one thought he had actually shown up to work.

In other less important but more personal news, I’ve been tracking my calories and seem to come in right around 1800-1900.  So that’s good as a) I’m definitely not eating as much as I was before, so I was FOR SURE sustaining my running this race and not undereating (yay!) and b) I’m naturally eating right around maintenance calories, which makes calorie reduction to say, an average of 1500 per day make sense.  If I had naturally settled around 1500, then I’d be a little frustrated, as reducing from there makes me cranky.  It’s gonna take some calorie detox time, but I should be able to get back to where I was eating a few months ago.  Maybe my metabolism just took some extra time to repair?  Only time will tell.

I am also now 12 days without a cigarette.  I hadn’t intended to quit for good, but the Sunday before the race, I quit until after the race (for a week).  Then I got sick.  After the race, I was still sick, so I didn’t just go light one up.  It occurred to me that I might be best served by making a go to quit entirely.  Oh, I’ll probably still slip up and suck down a delicious American Spirit Yellow occasionally while drunk.  I’m just going to attempt to not NEED it.  I’d like to be one of those people who can take it or leave it and most often?  Leave it.  And the only way to do that is practice having some alcohol without cigarettes.  Today I had a glass of wine and a margarita and didn’t really crave one.  That’s huge for me.  I believe there will be some imbibing tomorrow.  It will be another test.  I think if I make it through the first few drinks without and have less than I can count on one hand all night, I’ll say I passed.

…and hey, it’s almost a post.  Next week, I promise some more coherent topics, I have some questions to answer, my workout and eating plan post-race, and much, much more.

If you wish to ask me a question, you can comment below, or you can use this handy dandy formspring ask-me-anything-page (hey, everyone is doing it, I might as well).  Have a great weekend!  Think poopy thoughts for my leezard, healthy thoughts for me and Zliten (as we are both getting over our respective plagues), and comforting thoughts for some poor, freaked out people who had a plane try to join their conference call this morning.  Good night, good weekend, and good days ahead if’n karma will please.