Puddle Jumping in DC

Triumph and Capri Cut Pants

It's hard to really complain about my pants problem . . . but they're noticeably too big again (I know, it's rough) and my office building is kept so cold that always wearing skirts isn't practical. So, I trekked off to the thrift store again and I have to say

capri cut pants have revolutionized thrift shopping for the short person!

It used to be that I'd find so few "short" and "petite" pants on the rack that I'd end up buying regular pants promising that I'd trim and hem them, but never would so the pants shortage would remain - it would, in fact, be worse since I'd own more pants that didn't fit after I shopping than before. Now instead of only dejectedly going through the regular pants looking for the elusive "S" or "P" label, I can shop in the capri section too.

I know this doesn't sound all that momentous but, if you too have searched for thirft pants for the short person, you know that it is.

I Don't Really Understand Shopping Retail

But it is convenient for me that so many people do.

One of the downsides to loosing 25-30lbs (there aren't many) is that, rather suddenly, none of your clothes fit. Over Christmas, I bought two pairs of pants but alternating them didn't make for much wardrobe variety. So, yesterday, I spent an hour at Value Village filling a cart that replaced more than 50% of my non-athletic wardrobe, including three very nice suits (not pictured) for $110.

An upside that I discovered today is that I can finally breathe in plow:

Resolutions 2006

Find a new physical event goal. After the marathon, I briefly considered doing the Chesapeake Bay swim until I read that entry required either proof of completing another open water swim or a 3 hour pool swim. I don't doubt i could swim for that long but, man, I just don't want to. That put the length of the Bay swim in perspective for me though. I missed the registration for the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler. I tried to register but the server was too busy to handle it and then it filled up 24 hours after registration opened. I'm tentatively planning to do the Frederick Half-Marathon in April but I'm floundering a bit with event goals . . . so I should focus on my goal to

Do more yoga. I suspect my lack of yoga routine in 2005 to be closely related to my hip discomfort during the MCM. I haven't had a solid yoga routine since before going back to school. It's high time I focused on it again.

Loose 12.5 more pounds - or so. I didn't quite loose 30 pounds in 2005 but I did loose 27.5. Now, faced with meeting the goal, I think should raise the bar (I can do chin-ups now, by the way - tee, hee. Wasn't really a resolution but I've been working on them since Paul hung a chin up bar in the hall between the kitchen and the front door.) and add 10 pounds (lost) to the original goal. By my very geeky body fat to lean mass calculations, that should put me solidly in the healthy zone. I'm not really sure what my natural lean body weight should be but 12.5 more pounds seems like a good next step. Unfortunately, I already need new pants. The clothing situation is getting desperate but I hate clothes shopping . . . I picked up a pair of jeans and a pair of corduroys (and a pretty new suit for $1) at my mom's favorite thrift shop over the holidays so maybe I can manage to avoid a full scale wardrobe shopping event for a while still.

Bake more. You might question the wisdom of this given the previous goal. The 4th quarter of 2005 was definitely marked by more cooking than the previous 10 or 12 quarters. But still, I did very little baking. Then, during the last three weeks of 2005, I made >400 cookies, 7 loaves of pumpkin or zucchini bread, and a peach cobbler (and I helped make an apple crumble). I believe that may have followed 48 weeks of no baking at all. They were all tasty (though some textures left a bit to be desired) and many were low fat and sweetened with fruit juice. Baking is not very South Beach but I'm allowed 3 starches a day - may as well really enjoy them.

That seems like a pretty good list . . . I still would like to teach the bird to come on command or do other tricks. Since trick training is transferable and we could teach her some basic manner commands too, it would really help whoever takes care of her while we're in China for 5-6 weeks next summer (contact me to get on the list of wannabe bird sitters) but I need to consider my commitment to this for a few more days first.

Goal Progress

So, 11 months from the last resolutions and contemplating the next, it's time for a reality check.

1.) Loose 30 pounds before I turn 30
Well, I revised that one to 30 pounds in 2005 and I am well on my way. From Fitday.com " You are currently 7.6 lb above the target weight. The deadline for your goal is 32 days (4 weeks, 4 days) away. To meet your goal you need to lose about 1.66 lb per week." And, since I never make it to the gym in spite of the lovely classes they offer and the hot tub, I finally joined Curves yesterday - simpler anyway; maybe fewer choices will help.

2) Run 26.2 miles on October 30, 2005
Done.

3. Teach the bird to come on command.
Oh, my. I was a total failure on this one. I don't think lessons even got past January. I'll have to think some more on this.

4. Water the plants
Well, they are alive . . . but they still live in semi-arid conditions.

5. Make the Bug Blog more socially relevant.
Sort of. I don't find the stuff I write for school translates to blog particularly well since it would require so much backstory to make sense (if I posted my analysis of federal trade adjustment assistance, for example, or a 30-page conflict analysis of the DC lead crisis, good grief). I think I was doing alright until April but then grad school didn't really leave me any spare analysis capacity - maybe, next year.

I Didn't Know It Was a Phenomenon

I think of myself as a rather adventurous cook. I've been cooking regularly since I was 14 and declared I was going to be a vegetarian. My parents had a fit; I was pretty stubborn; they calmed down; I learned to cook. I borrowed tons of cookbooks from the library and started my recipe collection. I discovered heath food stores and tofu, but, as I didn't drive, had a pretty limited capacity for getting specific ingredients when I wanted them, so I learned to make do. I've been playing "fast and loose" with recipes ever since, using them as guidelines for combinations of quantities, spices, and cooking times.

Since I've been cooking more, that makes Mac nervous. When we moved in together, 10 years ago now, he took over most of the cooking. Recently, I was going to cook fish (which we do occasionally even though it's not strictly vegetarian) but wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. I was also spending the evening cleaning the fish tank (the irony, no?) and didn't want to do anything complicated. I decided to just toss some canned black beans and diced tomato (w/green chili) over the fish and bake it. That was way outside the box for Mac (but, apparently he thought I was putting spaghetti sauce on the fish). Mac liked it even better than I did. Turns out that all the juice from the beans and tomato makes for very moist and tender fish.

But, back to the phenomenon, Google Cooking. What? The advent of wireless internet has made cooking much easier. I can plug the primary ingredients that I want to cook into a search engine and it spits back dozens (if not hundreds) of possible recipes to choose from. The Washington Post wrote a whole article about this "phenomenon" today. You can see  photos of the carnage from my last foray into Google Cooking. Our vegetable guy gave us two enormous cashew pumpkins so I made huge pots of pumpkin peanut butter and thai pumpkin coconut soups (generally, of course) for a recent potluck - it was a lot of pumpkin.

This morning's article lead me to tofu, cauliflower, peas, and orange for tonight's dinner.

Carb-loading on South Beach

Goal Progress - courtesy of Fitday.com
"You are currently 15 lb above the target weight.
The deadline for your goal is 63 days (9 weeks, 0 days) away.
To meet your goal you need to lose about 1.67 lb per week."

I'm down 5 lbs since starting this South Beach thing. Not bad - that's 2.5 lbs per week and it's not for a lack of eating. Today, I'm trying to drink 40 oz of (diluted) sports drink in preparation for tomorrow. I expect to retain some water along with the extra glycogen which I'll then loose when the glycogen burns off (That's why extreme diets cause people to loose 10+ pounds really quickly. By basically fasting, people burn off muscle glycogen stores and the water involved in doing so.) So, really, I'm trying to put on a couple of pounds of water.

Running gurus recommend eating 5-8 grams of carbohydrate for every kilogram of lean body mass daily when carbo-loading for a marathon - for me that's 240-380 grams. Since starting South Beach, I've been eating between 130-200 grams of carbohydrate daily - plenty to fuel daily running and weekend 8-10 milers but I don't know about a marathon.

Yesterday, I managed 256g (including the 30 oz of sports drink) but I had to work at it. That's a big change from earlier this spring when I rarely fell below 300 grams. The difference is, whenever I tried to cut calories while eating high carbohydrate, I was hungry all the time. Right now, I'm trying to eat extra grains and fruits to get me to my carbohydrate goal but I can't imagine eating 380 grams.

Time for a mid-morning snack . . . wish me luck.

Eating Healthy is Hard Work

Two weeks ago, I decided to experiment with the South Beach Diet. Their nutritionists recommend that distance runners (or bikers) skip Phase I and go right to Phase II.

I'm loving the food. I've discovered smoked tofu - sounds awful but is awesome on salad (as pictured left) and sugar snap peas with laughing cow cheese - hee, hee . . . - and re-discovered peanut butter and apple (from elementary school, remember?).

Since starting grad school our diet had de-evolved to mostly starches and fruit. Mac's been so stressed and busy that he hasn't been stir frying much for the past year or so (What? Mac not stir frying nightly?) We'd been eating out more and making ravioli and beans for dinner more . . . lunches fell into a rut . . . snacks from dining services (read: cheese popcorn or M&Ms) were common place . . .

I think I'm actually much happier without all the sugar. Plain yogurt, fresh mango, and raspberry is really nice once you've de-sugared your palette. Since we still leave the house after breakfast and don't get back until after supper some times, it takes planning . . . and cooking.  I go to the store all the time. . . . Yesterday, I went for a spagehtti squash. Tonight I think I want to make thai stirfry . . . I need coconut milk. Ah, the joy of having a supermarket two blocks away . . . .

I Think I Need an Extension

Way back in January, I set a goal I called 30x30. I''m still only at 10x30.

I worried that by also setting the goal to Run 26.2 Miles on October 30, 2005 I might be undermining the first goal. Without being very organized about restricting your diet while eating enough nutrients to fuel your running, it's pretty easy to compensate for the running by eating more. I weigh almost exactly what I weighed when marathon training started.

I also set a non-public goal about getting straight "A"s in graduate school - I'm much closer on that one (there was this "B+" incident in micro-economics) but that also undermines the first goal - skipping a workout to do homework and bribing yourself with food to read one more chapter isn't great for weightloss.

So, back to that extension . . . . According to if I set a new goal of December 31, 2005, " The deadline for your goal is 97 days (13 weeks, 6 days) away. To meet your goal you need to lose about 1.37 lb per week." I might have to be more organized about this.

Check it out

According to Runners World, I burned 1250 calories this morning.

The first day is the hardest

I spent far too much time yesterday examining my diet & excercise log and learned what the scale had basically already told me: calories consumed - calories burned = no net weight loss.

I also learned that, in the last two weeks, I consumed an average of about 400 calories per day from cookies, ice cream and chocolate! OMG! Now granted Mac has been stressed out and, when Mac is stressed out, he buys Ben & Jerry's . . . . still, this is not acceptable. Since we already know that you need to net -500 calories per day to loose 1 pound per week, all that running and stuff is good for my heart but, if I make up for it in chocolate, it does nothing for my waistline.

So starting today for a month (It's a short month): no cookies, no chocoate, no ice cream. My only exceptions are hot cocoa and any desert made by Alex (I'm not crazy).

Resolutions . . . . .

I have so many. I'm not sure that's it's all possible but hey, how many New Year's Resolutions are? Maybe if I broadcast them into cyberspace, I'll feel more accountable for them.

1.) Loose 30 pounds before I turn 30

Hummm. I've been tracking my diet on I recommend it for anybody regardless of whether you want to loose weight. It's educational - from a getting to know yourself point of view. It's tedious when you get started but if your diet is repetitive like mine, it gets faster. I sat down and calculated some common home-prepared meals - like pasta with homemade sauce and Mac's stirfry - and created custom entries for them. I don't bother adjusting for when Mac substitutes tempeh for tofu - close enough. It's all an estimate anyway. I find that holding myself accountable for what I eat, reduces mindless munching. It also helps me focus on finding the nutrition in my food. Lastly, it makes me dread eating out - so much harder to calculate - which isn't a bad thing for my budget, really.

I've used the site periodically for the last couple of years. I tend to enter stuff for a month and then go six months without doing it and then decide I need to check up on myself again. When I first started, I was training for the ill-fated DC Marathon and discovered I wasn't eating enough fat - can you believe it? So I started eating more nuts and lowfat, rather than nonfat, yogurt. There's a function for publishing your diet log online but I don't see that happening.

According to their calculator "The deadline for your goal is 258 days (36 weeks, 6 days) away. To meet your goal you need to lose about 0.814 lb per week." That's actually entirely reasonable.

To loose one pound of fat, you have to burn 3500 more calories than you eat.

So, I have to burn 407 calories more per day than I eat. That's the equivalent of running about 3 miles a day. Since that's a bit tough on my knees, I'll have to substitute in some biking & yoga.

Wow, this is getting long. Should I unveil these one day at a time?

Some good resources:
The Healthy Body Calculator - the best "how much do I need to eat?" calculator that I've found
Activity Calorie Calculator - find out how many calories you burn in one minute of water polo (or a bunch of other stuff.)