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TEN MILES.

It’s actually pretty shocking to me that on Saturday, I wrote this bleak, helpless post. Then by Saturday evening I was feeling better. On Sunday morning I went one of the first area launch meetings of the new Weight Watchers PointsPlus Program (try saying THAT ten times fast) which was like a HUGE PARTY and by Sunday afternoon I felt ready to put my sneakers on and try and run ten miles.

And guess what? I did it.

It shocked me. It really did. I’ve been struggling with running in one way or another ever since I did my first 5k back in 2009. I often end up getting dehydrated and sick, or hurt in my ankles or feet. So I was feeling trepidatious. But I really felt like I need to get this 10 miler down to see if I could really manage the half marathon in Las Vegas next weekend.

And I learned some stuff! Some really important stuff!!

  1. I need to start out slooooooooooow. This is the complete antithesis to what usually happens during a race. There is so much adrenaline, and people are bouncing up and down, and the gun or the bullhorn goes off, and it’s like… WHOOOOSH! Everyone takes off. I always have started out every race way, way, way too fast. Like crazy fast. And what happens? I end up feeling really bad very quickly.  On Sunday, I decided to start slowly, ie walking. Walking briskly, but WALKING. And I told myself I would not run until I felt like running. Which did not happen for a good half mile. Now during a REAL RACE, this means a lot of people – I mean HUNDREDS of people – will be passing me by. And I have to just not let that get to me.  I have come to realize that I am really a loner when it comes to running. When people want to run with me, it generally makes me kind of nervous because I lose my natural pace. So I am going to have to really hunker down into mySELF during the Las Vegas half because that is what is going to get my through.
  2. I need to be well hydrated but not TOO hydrated. Duh. I have been dehydrated so much it’s embarrassing. But I finally realized that what I need is a sports drink, like sugar-free Gatorade or Powerade or some such, and those little Gu chomps. (ie giant gummy bear things) And just a little bit of water. That’s my combo. That’s what I used on Sunday, and it worked better than any other long run I’ve had.
  3. Slow, slow, slow. I just told myself that I would lope along at my turtle pace and stay comfortable at all times. I never got short of breath or otherwise strained. I just wanted to be comfortable. This is a good thing.
  4. My feet and ankles had a few Moments of discomfort, but weirdly enough, the 10 mile run around the lake felt 100x better than a ten MINUTE run on the treadmill. Go figure. So.

So that’s it. That run on Sunday was just… amazing. It was as good or better than the 9 mile run I did a while back. It amazed me. And when my Runkeeper app hit that 10.01 mark, I just about cried. I could have gone on. I wasn’t wiped out. I knew then that I would be able to finish the half, and that I could probably stay within spitting distance of my 15-minute mile pace. Which is glacially slow for some people, but just right for me.

I was so in love with Oakland when I ran this run. I started out in the late afternoon and by the time I finished (2.5 hours later) it was dark. The necklace of lights turned on around the lake, and I saw the runners, the hobblers, people of every race and age and size and ability, all circling around. It was a beautiful thing.

12

Nonscale Victory: Running Shirtless

It’s really good and important to take note of NSV (non-scale victories) when the scale is not feeling particularly victorious. I had one today.

I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear. But what happened this morning is that I left the house prepared for super chilly weather. It was like 50 degrees up by our house. Mr McB and I decided to check out a new (to us) route where he could bike and I could run and we could meet up and wave at each other and all that. I was very excited!

So we drove down there and WHOA it was easily 20+degrees warmer at the trail. I was wearing a hot, long sleeved t-shirt (that I usually wear cross- country SKIING or in super cold weather) plus a hoodie sweatshirt. I knew it was going to be awfully uncomfortable. Then I realized my pockets in the sweatshirt (my only pockets) were super shallow and this meant that my keys and phone were going to fall out.

My chivalrous spouse offered to let me have HIS jacket with the nice zippered pockets. He was just wearing a T-shirt so he didn’t need the jacket. But I could not deal with the long-sleeved shirt PLUS the jacket. Right then I decided to strip off the shirt. In the parking lot. I was like, it’s okay! I’m in my sports bra! And then I zipped up the jacket.

My plan was to run 6 miles, or to see if I could get anywhere in that range with a combo of run/walk. It is just now dawning on me (ha ha ha) that this Las Vegas half marathon is like five weeks away! and I better see what’s what. I wasn’t putting a lot of pressure on myself, and keep saying it’s fine if I walk it all, but I don’t WANT to walk it all because it’ll just take too damn long. I’m hoping for maybe a 50-50 ratio, and… getting in around the 3 hour range? I have no idea.

So I take off at a fast walk. After a couple of songs I felt nice and warmed up and started running. By the time I got to 2.5 miles, I felt like I was running with a soggy X-ray vest on my back. It was just sooooooo uncomfortable. And I decided to whip off the jacket and RUN IN MY BRA.

Now, I know people run in sports bras ALL THE TIME. But not me. I mean, I have always been way envious of those sports-bra type runners with the 6 pack abs (no, I have NO pack, or a one pack, or maybe a mini-keg). And I wasn’t actually baring my belly. I wrapped the jacket around my waist, and I pulled my pants up past my navel, quite dorkily, so that there was maybe two inches of skin exposed. But STILL. I was RUNNING IN MY BRA.

La la la! It felt really breezy and free and wonderful. The sun felt awesome on my skin and it was just great. And I felt pretty sure that I was not offending myself or any passersby.

It was an incredibly gorgeous, clear sunny day and I was running by the bay feeling just ecstatic. Until a couple things. 1. I realized I (don’t hit me! I KNOW!) forgot to bring water. AGAIN. FAIL.

2. I really, really, really had to use a restroom. Like really badly.

So my six-mile run got cut to five miles and the last 1/4 mile I was DYING of discomfort. (Shout out to Karen, whose recommendation of John Mellencamp’s “Human Wheels” literally kept me going instead of writhing about on the ground) I luckily did found a public restroom but then I needed to text Mr. McB to come rescue me. I was exhausted. But I was happy. I’d run at least five miles (maybe more? maybe close to six?) and it had really been great up until the bathroom moment.

I took a picture of my sweaty self in the parking lot. Feeling pretty pleased.

Viva Las Vegas!

PS. And just because of this post and the “Exposed” one below, NO it does not mean I’m going to be showing up in a bikini anytime soon. This is the end of taking my clothes off online!

20

Heading Into the Wilderness

Storm over Yellowstone Falls

I’m realllllllllllllllllllly looking forward to our family vacation coming up. I feel like it’s been a really long, hardworking summer and I am READY for some R & R!

I’ve been scoping out the place where we’re going and it looks like the food situation… um, I don’t know. We’re staying in these rustic cabins and it looks as though everyone who stays there eats in a cafeteria kind of place. Hm. All I can do is cross my fingers, hope for the best, Make Good Choices, etc.

I think it will be a plus-minus sort of situation. On one hand, there will be opportunity for a lot of activity. Hiking, biking, rafting etc! In a beautiful spot! On the other hand, it’s a lot of unknowns, especially with the food. I won’t have my scale. 😉 I am pretty sure there is going to be NO INTERNET (!!!!!!!!!!). So that does not bode well for my food blog. I am vowing to take pics of all my eats though, and when I can upload them, I will.

5

It’s An “Energy Imbalance”


balance

Originally uploaded by hans s

Back in June, I went to a staff training for Weight Watchers; it’s part of a series on the science of weight loss. How awesome is this, I ask you? It was hard to get excited about a 12-hour work day especially on a Friday, but I was hoping to learn a lot and learn I did.

On one hand, it was simple and basic and nothing I hadn’t heard before, but on the other hand it felt totally illuminating. Or maybe confirming.

There was a lot of talk about metabolism. What IS “metabolism,” anyway? It seems like this mysterious and complicated mechanism that nobody seems to clearly understand. But as we learned, metabolism is actually a NUMBER. It’s the difference between the calories that one burns and that calories that one takes in. That’s it.

And if we are trying to lose weight, then we want the numbers IN to be fewer than the numbers OUT.

It was kind of stunningly simple. My mind was kind of whirling around like crazy, thinking of my own understanding of my own numbers in the past few months. I’ve been wearing this little gadget called a Philips DirectLife which measures the calories OUT every day. For the first few weeks, I was going gangbusters and burning 150-180% of my goal every day. I was knocking the socks off that thing.

Then I hurt my ankle. Again. Everything slowed wayyyyy down. I could see by the charts on the gadget that even when I tried to walk, I was averaging about 200 calories less per day (burned) than before. On top of that, at the same time, I started a new job that was kind of mentally exhausting. I was going out for coffee 1-2x a day more than previously. And you know, I put cream in my coffee. So there’s 100-200 calories more IN per day. Even if everything else stayed the same.

And suddenly it became glaringly obvious (in a way that just had not clicked before) that this was WHY I was unable to just shake off the last 5-10 pounds I was wanting to lose.

I mean I KNEW it, on some level, that walking was just not the same as running or banging out long sessions on the elliptical. But my little DirectLife was ticking away and showing me in very graphic terms exactly what was going on. Add the extra coffee and there you have it.

So now, my ankle is feeling better and I am able to do more again. AND I’ve been tracking my food carefully on my food blog. And… voila. Happy scale days again.

There was more good stuff in that metabolism lecture; about the different ways we burn calories, and metabolism as we age and metabolism in men vs women, but I’m going to save that for a later post.

5

Runner’s HIGH!


Roadwork girls

Originally uploaded by B℮n

I had the best run ever today. And I mean maybe the best run I’ve ever had in my life. I can’t remember another time when running has felt so absolutely effortless, pain-free (YES!) and joyful. I just set out intending to walk, but then Earth Wind & FIre “Fantasy” came on and that got me GOING. And instead of my usual little old-lady run, (very short strides, more like a fast shuffle) I just WENT with it, and I was like, FLYING, uphill! It felt so so so good. Then I walked a bit. Then another song came on and again I just pumped it out.

Partially it just felt great to do that. It was a cool, beautiful morning in the woods. Partially I was rehearsing for the Weight Watchers 5k walk I am going to be leading this Friday (SO excited about this!). I was thinking about telling the members about stride length and pace, and remembering all I’d learned from my racewalking coach with Team in Training.

But all of a sudden I thought, what if I just ran… like a gazelle? (OK, don’t laugh) Instead of like the little old lady I’d started to think of myself as being, since my ankle got injured again. And my body just took off. It took off and I was like, WOO HOOOOOOOOO look at this!

I was also trying to show my Phillips Directlife monitor a thing or two. According to it, I’m not running even when I think I’m running. So today I was like, “I’m RUNNING, dammit!” I wanted to know exactly what I need to do for the stupid thing to actually register as “you are running.” As it turns out, it takes this “running like a gazelle” thing as opposed to the little old lady shuffle. Figures.

Anyway, I feel a renewed happiness about running. I hope I can run like this again because it felt so awesome. But to just have experienced it this one time was amazing. Now I’m even more excited for the 10k Trail Run/Hike I signed up for in September. Who wants to join me? Brunch at my house afterward because it is just 3 blocks away!

(note: that is not me in the photograph, but it looks a lot like my woods and it is how I FELT)

12

Empty Nest Fitness & Food

A while back I joked (sort of) on Twitter that “If I lived alone I would work out all the time and eat broccoli for dinner every night.” I was sort of kidding.

But now I’m going to have an Empty Nest for THREE WEEKS and that means… well, tonight I had an evening workout, I had broccoli and cauliflower for dinner, and nobody cared!

Having a young family definitely impacts one’s ability to exercise and eat what one might eat on one’s own. Of course I have to remember that when I lived on my own, in my twenties, it often meant snarfing down boxes of Kraft mac and cheese (in those days 1 box = one serving) and cartons of Haagen Dasz. Living alone doesn’t guarantee healthy habits, I know that.

But my kid likes to have real meals and I do not blame her. She likes the way I cook, and she isn’t thrilled with YOYO (you’re on your own) dinners or dinners that Dad throws together when I’m out at Weight Watchers in the evenings. So I try to pull it together to cook a Real Meal a few times a week at least.

Mr. McBody is not overly attached to Real Meals. He acknowledges the effort I put in to them but he is just as happy with a can of black eyed peas or a vegi burger. He’s not picky. My mom is also pretty easy going.

So now, these days, it’s just us three. Every night can be a YOYO night if I want it to be!

I remember back when my eldest was about a year old. Her godmother, my good friend, came and lived with us for a few months. She’d get up and go running in the hills whenever she felt like it.  I used to watch her go off and feel such longing for the freedom she had. Of course, she probably would’ve been happy to watch her godchild while *I* went running but I had no such desire. I remember taking one or both kids to the daycare place at the gym. After a while it just seemed like too much hassle, all of it. Activity came to become painful and unpleasant, so much so that I dreaded going to the playground because it made me so exhausted. Even to get up and push my kid on a swing. That makes me so sad now. I mean I did it – I logged in a thousand hours in playgrounds – but it felt like running a marathon every time.

So I totally understand when moms with young kids just throw in the towel. And I am completely awestruck and boggled by healthy moms like MizFit who do not see parenthood as an excuse to become a couch potato (as I did for many, many, many MANY years) – in fact who sees it as an imperative to be as active and joyful as possible. (um, can I have a do-over please?)

These days, nobody needs a ride home. Nobody needs to have their favorite chicken pot pie for dinner. I’m gonna work late, I’m gonna work out, and I’m gonna give her a big hug when she finally gets back.

3

Anatomy of a Wedding Weekend

I knew this weekend would be challenging, but I was not exactly sure how. In looking back on this past few days, I look at the ups and downs, the many small choices and challenges I faced, and what I learned from it.

I went into the weekend feeling I had not much wiggle room to spare. I wanted to come out of it maintaining where I was at before I went in. I’m not going to weigh myself until tomorrow or maybe even the next day.

Friday morning: Got up in the dark to get to the airport. Had coffee. Got to airport and headed straight to Starbucks for my new favorite breakfast, Perfect Oatmeal. It was perfect. Good way to start the day. Got onto plane #1. Slept. I am grateful that not only am I “able” to sleep on planes; in fact, a plane seat hits me like a tranquilizer gun and I immediately pass out into a deep, drooling coma the instant I feel the wheels lift off. I think this has something to do with a period when I was deathly afraid of flying and I literally learned to hypnotize myself into sleep so that I would not freak out. I don’t freak out so much anymore, but I think it’s because I’m passed out.

Layover: Las Vegas airport. We only had 10 minutes before boarding the next flight and I ran around frantically trying to find something suitable for carry-on lunch. Seemed there was nothing but Burger King and chocolates. Finally found a place that sold sandwiches. Whole wheat baguette turkey sandwich. 470 calories. With nothing on it! Blech! But I was desperate. Grabbed it. Ate half of it on plane. It was awful but I was very hungry. Had a packet of Ritz cracker cheese sandwiches courtesy of Southwest, which immediately transported me to my children’s unfortunately unhealthy childhoods, where they and I consumed mass quantities of those things. I am addicted to them.

Arrived at destination.  Went to hotel gym and spent 45 minutes on elliptical! I was so sweaty and proud of myself, especially after having spent all day in vegetative state on airplanes. Went to awesome hotel restaurant and had a wonderful dinner of 2 deviled eggs, a spinach salad from heaven, and a little bowl of polenta and spinach. That would have been quite fine. It would have been perfect if the evening had ended there, but alas, it did not.

Went to post-rehearsal-pre-wedding reception thingie hosted by groom’s parents. LOVELY home, all catered event. At first all I saw was wine and some platters of strawberries, brownies and cannolis. I was full from dinner and not tempted. I took a teeny nibble from my mother’s brownie & cannoli; both were way too sweet and thought, good, I am home free! Big basket of potato chips. Not tempted. THEN they brought out the gourmet cheese tray thing. I faltered a little. Then I got into a conversation with some relatives who asked some very kind but probing questions about the state of my Writing; something I am NOT feeling good or confident or happy about these days, and the cheese dam just broke.  Gorgonzola and Muenster and Brie and baguette slices and some salami rounds and it all just VANISHED into my mouth. I lost my mind. I lost it completely. I actually could not quite believe it, but there it was. Kablooey!

The next morning I woke up with a cheese hangover and….. a severely throbbing ankle. Apparently it had not been super charmed by my killing the elliptical like that, brace or not. I was very sad. I decided not to return to the gym but instead went to  a street arts festival with my sister in law. I walked around for several hours, but at a relatively slow pace. Better than nothing, right? Still, my ankle was throbbing even more after that. I took a very brief trip to the gym and tried to find something that did not make it hurt. I did not find anything. I was sad.

I had another spinach salad. (sooo good) Felt fortified for the wedding. Got dressed. Squeezed self into Spanx and then into dress. Went to wedding. Short and sweet, followed by reception. I resisted all appetizers, including another cheese plate (this cheese was not nearly as good as Friday’s). How did I do this? I constantly texted my WW BFF with the choices that lay before me. I sent some pictures. It was actually easy. If only I’d done that during Friday night’s cheese debacle! I gleefully reported how I passed up some deep fried raviolis in little dishes of marinara. Yay me! The wedding dinner itself proved quite easy: seared tuna and snow peas, which I’d pre-ordered. They came with wasabi mashed potatoes, which I did not eat, because that sounded like a horrid combination. Lucky me. Then the cake!! At first I wasn’t going to eat any. Then a little bit. Then I decided that the dinner had been so healthy I could go ahead and have a piece. It wasn’t a very small piece. Later, in the hotel, I looked it up: 16 points! Sixteen points for carrot cake! If only I’d know. Oh, the power of knowledge. Next time I will use my WW iPhone app and figure this out before I lift fork to mouth. If I’d known, I would have had like two bites. Which would’ve been fine.

People told me to DANCE at the wedding, but I really didn’t. This was the first wedding in which I was of the generation older than the wedding couples, and I felt weirdly old fogeyish, my ankle hurt, and my mother (even older than me) realllllly wanted to get out of the loud loud loud venue and go back to the hotel. So we left when the dancing began.

Oh well.

So, today: more drugged sleep-of-the-dead on the plane. More Ritz crackers. Another missed lunch. I was so happy to get home to beautiful unmuggy weather, I pledged to go out and walk. But I did not. I just…… didn’t.

Thus, the weekend got away from me, and I pulled it back, and it was a tug of war back and forth. I don’t know how to score it overall. An overall failure? Overall victory? No. I’d say it was a learning experience.

As we say at WW, it’s either a losing week or a learning week.

I learned:

  • prepare/bring lunch for plane ahead of time. Go to grocery, bring something from home, whatever. Make like a Girl Scout and be prepared.
  • When in a highly charged emotional situation, TRY to have a moment of consciousness and reach out: Twitter or text a friend who can keep you grounded and away from large quantities of cheese.
  • Look up calories/points values of items BEFORE eating so you can at least make an informed decision. I was assuming the carrot cake was about half what it was.
  • Get out and take a walk before catching up with Facebook and blogs, or you’ll never go.

So… I probably got a C- in the weight loss/maintenance arena, and maybe a B+ for learning. And, it was a lovely weekend, a beautiful wedding and great to see family for a brief little time.

EPILOGUE: I did not get a C-!!!!!! Just weighed myself (Monday morning) and my weight is…. UNCHANGED! to the ounce! from when I left. Which was my goal. It’s a new day! It’s a new week! YAY!!!!

8

New Day

It’s really hard to believe how one can feel SO DOWN one day and then the next day, it’s all new and different. (one of the great things about life, right?) Yesterday was truly a huge low. But it caused me to really dig INTO that lowness, to feel it and try to understand it and to make some changes.

One thing that changed immediately is that I vowed (with the help of my spouse AND my friend) to go to bed earlier. I am such a night owl but staying up until 1am was just not feeling good. So last night I went to bed early. And it made it so much easier to get up early (6am WITHOUT the alarm clock!). Mr. McBody and I went for a beautiful sunrise walk/run in the park near our house. It was so nice.

The weight that I was so freaked out about has left me, making me think it was probably restaurant-induced water retention from sodium. So I’m back to where I’ve been basically all year. Whew.

And my blood glucose? Not so great right now. But I’m going to see my doc next week and we’ll get to the bottom of it. I don’t feel like I’m the world’s most epic fail, like I did yesterday. I’m just ready to deal with it.

5

Gadget Love

Y’all know I am somewhat of a gadget freak. I’ve tried to swear off buying any new ones but when Phillips DirectLife contacted me and offered to let me test-run their activity monitor, who was I to resist?

And now I am pretty much in love with this little thingie and all it comes with. Once my four month trial dries up I might just have to continue the relationship on my own.

Before, I had a Bodybugg because I got all intrigued by that after watching the Biggest Loser contestants wearing it. And I liked it pretty much. But I never ended up getting the individual support they promised because they do it by phone. The “coach” and I played phone tag like 4 times but I am very hard to reach on the phone.  So after all the phone tag I gave up. Also, you wear the BB on your arm and it always felt like a blood pressure cuff to me. (bad connotations) It got sweaty a lot. It wasn’t a big deal, but it wasn’t the most comfortable thing ever. Also, I felt like it almost gave TOO much information. So. After a while I sort of abandoned it.

Enter the DirectLife! I like it because it’s simple. It’s a little plastic white box smaller than a matchbox. It’s very light. It’s WATERPROOF! (I took it in the pool today!) You also have three choices of how to wear it: around your neck on a light cord, in your pocket, or hooked onto your bra or other piece of clothing. So it’s very versatile. I like wearing mine around my neck if I don’t have a pocket.

How does it work? It measures your micro-body movements so it calculates if you are walking, running, whatever. MOVING. Which is basically the point of activity. It probably does not have the same physiological precision of the Bodybugg, but actually, I do not care. My husband pointed out that you could “cheat” it by just holding it in your hand and bouncing it up and down, but dude, that is just cheating yourself. It’s like doing the Wii Fit from the couch. Yeah, you COULD, but do you really want to do that??

So I love the simplicity, the ease of wearing it. When you take it off, you plug into a little USB device on the computer. This turned out to be 100% easier than BB too, which was always having glitches and technical difficulties and causing me to re-install the software every five minutes (can you say ANNOYING?). So I love it. It goes right to the site and tells you your activity output by the day. You see the hills and peaks from the most active times. Then you can see the details from each hour, which is addictively fascinating to me. (WOW that’s when I took a walk at lunch! That’s when Shannon and I climbed up Lombard Street! That’s when I… ohhhhh. SAT AT MY DESK motionless for four hours.) It’s GOOD. And yeah, another great accountability tool.

But I didn’t even get to the best part yet. The best part is the fabulous, awesome, mindblowing coaching!!!!! I was assigned a coach named Jen. I was assuming that either I’d never hear from “Jen,” or that she would send me some one-sentence sound bites like, “Good moving today, Foodie!” But NO. I got an email asking about my goals and if I had questions. I sent her an email back. She looked at my activity for last Sunday. She noted that I was rather inactive between 2-5 and 6-8.

I said, “Welllllllll, I was taking a nap at 2, and then a shower (didn’t realize it was waterproof!) and then my show, I didn’t have a pocket and didn’t want the necklace on, but darn I was VERY active!” So she clued me into the waterproof and clip-on-bra thing. (um, in my case, clip-on-Spanx) She read my blog. She had such thoughtful things to say about my return to more than full time work, my fitness frustrations, my schedule, EVERYTHING.

She has emailed me EVERY DAY THIS WEEK. And they’re not just stock emails. They’re totally personalized, thorough, and all about me me me and MY situation. It has been so amazingly, astonishingly supportive and helpful. She’s also sent me some awesome PDF articles about various things we’ve discussed, New York times article about the hazards of sitting, etc. Just SO HELPFUL.

So I am over the moon about my little gadget and about the amazing support I’ve received from DirectLife’s coach Jen. They are a lot simpler than Bodybugg but in my mind that is a good thing, a very good thing.

9

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