Mixing things up

Most of my exercise has been biking a few times a week with at least one day of hill running. The other day, I had no desire to do either of those things but I really needed (yes, needed) to do something physical.

There are plenty of hiking trails around here, but I abhor hiking...even more so than running, and you know how much I dislike running. But there's a trail just down the street from my house that's straight uphill and is pretty much a mile-long stair workout that just so happens to be in the woods.

A section of the very beginning of the trail.

So the Roommie and I headed out to do that one Friday afternoon and it was glorious. It was a perfect evening to be out there and it kicked my butt. Perfect temperature, beautiful views, and good mindset on my end. I'm really glad we went!

On a side note, although I was more exhausted going uphill than coming down (duh!) and felt like I got more out of the trip fitness-wise going up, I burned more calories on the downhill part*. In hindsight it makes sense because I was going much faster going down and the uphill part was more of a weight-lifting workout almost. And you don't really burn that many calories lifting weights.

Overall, it was interesting to see that I don't need to be suffering from exertion to get my calorie targets for the day. A simple, albeit long, "hike" was enough to get me there.

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*I have a calorie-counter (BodyMedia Fit) that I've been wearing for the past month. I'll write up a post about it sometime in the near future. The major problem I find with it is that it's not very accurate for cycling, which is my main source of calorie burning these days. But other than that, it's pretty awesome. I highly recommend it!

Crash and burn, and beer

Remember that ride I was going to do yesterday? The 42-miler, 10 of which was straight uphill? Well, I didn't just ride it. I led the 16+ mph group as well!

For the most part, it was fun. On the flats and downhills, we were cruising at 18+ mph. It was awesome! But the long slog uphill royally sucked. It sucked so much that I had to stop multiple times just to talk myself into continuing on. Had I not been with a group, I would've turned around during those stops no question. But I kind of had to meet them at the top so I kept going.

The road wasn't even all that steep. It only had a 3.3% grade, which is significantly more mellow overall than the mountain I did a couple of weeks ago. I actually enjoyed that mountain and the other hills I've been going up lately. But this uphill just wasn't for me.

I think it's because there was absolutely no change in scenery the entire way. We were on this winding canyon road that followed a creek so no matter how far you'd gone, everything looked the same. There was no visual reward for suffering for so long and the pine trees and rocks got boring very quickly.

Every switchback looked exactly like this.

As did every straight-away. Notice the lack of views.

At least climbing mountains leads to better views the higher you go.

Anywhos, the climb itself wasn't bad because there were many places where the road evened out and I was able to get some speed and relief from my burning quads. I was still getting passed by everyone, though. Except on the downhill, of course.

Lastly, I think the main reason for my grumpiness was lack of food. I had eaten a fairly light breakfast that didn't adequately prepare me for this distance and vertical gain. So on the ride uphill, I ate nearly every energy bar I had brought with me...some 500 calories. I was still hungry after all that but at least I wasn't hating my life anymore, and eventually I made it to the top, where I continued to eat my last bar.

Our group that made it to the top.
I'm in the bright green in the front, finishing up my last bar to give me the energy to get home.

After I got home, I lied down on the couch to muster some energy to shower. I didn't get up for about an hour and a half. I was that tired.

Eventually the shower happened and I headed downtown to a music/arts/food festival my town holds every Memorial Day, at which the rugby team serves beer at the beer tent. And that means we get as much free beer and food as we want. Dangerous!

So I indulged in 6 pints of deliciousness and 2 servings of soba noodles over the course of the day and still managed to have a calorie deficit for the day. I didn't really need that last soba bowl, but they are so delicious and can only be found at these kinds of festivals so I just HAD to do it. Had I abstained, I would've hit my calorie deficit goal (I'm at -300 right now, and shoot for -750 every day). But it's soooo delicious that it's incredibly difficult to pass up.

Although I gave myself a free weekend to eat and drink whatever I wanted, after seeing that I'd consumed over 3000 calories in one afternoon, I think I may have to hold back a bit. Like, no beer today or something. After-all I drank 1400 calories in alcohol yesterday. That's how much I usually eat in one day! Yikes.

Going big this weekend

I bike with a women's group sometimes and every weekend they offer 3 rides of varying lengths: short, medium, and long. The distance for each length varies each week and progressively increases in each category as the season goes on.

When I'm not busy with rugby, I sign up to lead a ride usually of medium length because that's about the distance I'm at on my weekday rides. I don't like going too long before I'm ready because then I just hate my life and stay away from the bike altogether for long periods of time, as was the case with an Olympic distance triathlon I did a few years ago.

Anywhos, this weekend the medium ride is going somewhere I've been way too many times in the past couple of weeks and I'm kind of sick of that route. The long ride, on the other hand, is going 43 miles (I haven't ridden that far in over a year) AND uphill.

By "uphill" I don't mean any ol' hill, but rather the ride that I've been afraid to do since I first began biking around here three years ago. I'll go up a mountain, but for some reason I'm too afraid to ride to Jamestown.

At the same time, my jaunt up Lookout Mountain a couple of weeks ago has given me some courage with regards to road bike climbing so I'm pretty confident I will be able to make it up there with minimal psyche scarring. After all, the average grade is only 3.2% for those 6.5 miles. It's not too bad.

Sometimes, though, I get embarrassed by my big butt trying to make it up these hills, and I imagine other cyclists thinking that I don't belong there and that it's no wonder that I'm going so slowly. In those cases I have to remind myself that during such a long and brutal climb, everyone is simply focusing on their own suffering and no one pays attention to anything besides the burning of their lungs and legs.

That self-centered thinking makes it all better. It's also the only instance where I applaud egotism, mostly because it helps me. Also, I'm going with a bunch of women who are all very supportive, which helps matters as well.

So on Saturday, I ride this:

I'm choosing to ignore the 6 miles of uphill leading up to the real climb. Those are just pesky details that should be disregarded for the sake of my sanity.

Also, I will be going with the "fast" group (16+ mph) because although I will slow down significantly on the uphill (like 6.5 mph slow), I'm pretty sure I can keep a 16 mph pace during the flats on the way out there, and everything after the climb is downhill for 17 miles all the way home...my specialty!

Sometimes gravity really does work to my advantage.

Needing exercise

Right now is a very stressful time for me life- and future-wise and I've noticed that the days when I'm generally crabby are usually stretches of time I haven't worked out. I've figured out that if I haven't done anything active in three straight days, then my mood goes considerably downhill.

So I've been biking and generally exercising a lot more lately to prevent those feelings of unhappiness. I have a very sedentary job (and lifestyle) so on days when I don't do much of anything physically, I get antsy and feel the need to move around. A few months ago I would have been content with sitting around all day, but not anymore. It's like a crave exercise, which is a weird feeling for me.

Part of this need to exercise is due to not wanting to lose all the fitness I've worked so hard to get. While I don't mind being unfit on a bike (I don't like it by any means, but it's not entirely terrible), I absolutely hate being out of shape when running.

I've mentioned before that most of the activities I like to do require some sort of run fitness, so I can't afford to become out of shape because I will just have to start over. And beginning to run after some time off is excruciatingly painful for me, mostly mentally and less so physically. So that fear of having to start over is enough to get me out the door to run a dreaded hill at least once a week.

The dreaded hill and stairs that are my Tuesday nemesis.

Although I talk so much smack about this hill, there is a positive side to running it weekly: I don't have to do distance runs to get in better shape. I can get the torture that is running out of the way quickly. So far I've been running the stairs 5 times then the hill 5 times, and it takes me about 20 minutes to finish the whole workout. Short and sweet, just the way I like it.

I've been doing this for the past three months and I've noticed that it's becoming, dare I say, easy. So last week I gave myself a cutoff time for the stairs (20 seconds) and another one for the hill (25 seconds) and did each one until I couldn't make the cutoff time anymore. I wanted to see by how much I should increase my workouts since I feel like I can go longer now. I made it to 7 up the stairs, and 7 up the hill. So that's what I'm going to do for the next couple of weeks and then do this "test" again.

I may not be going faster than before (which is another problem I'll discuss in a future post), but I can definitely do more of these consistently.

That's another NSV (Non-Scale Victory) I'm very proud of!

Kicking butt in bicycling

Time for a positive post! I've been pretty down lately due to my weight-loss and state of my life, but there is some good that I haven't shared yet.

I road biked up a mountain last week! This mountain to be exact:

That's never happened before. I know I've been getting thinner and thus faster (I'm consistently keeping a 17+ mph pace over 20+ miles, which I haven't been able to do before), but I didn't think I could make it up an honest-to-goodness mountain without passing out.

I used to be so scared of anything that was steep and continued uphill for more than a mile, but somehow I talked myself into it and I made it to the top! Hooooooolla!

Here's the elevation profile:

In case you can't see the scale because the type is super small, that's 6.5 miles of climbing over 1700 vertical feet which comes out to an average grade of 5.5%. And I made it to the top without falling over because I was going too slowly! (By the way, I can go as slow as 2.5 mph before that happens. How do I know? Because it's happened going up a small "mountain".) In fact, I kept a respectable 6.4 mph average. Not fast by any means, but fast for my big butt going up a MOUNTAIN.

And since I was able to do this and didn't suffer too much (as in, I wanted to do it again in the future) I looked into mountains closer to where I live. I found one that's about the same difficulty and distance. I'm still pretty terrified because big girls like me aren't supposed to make it up mountains like that, but since I did it once I think I can do it again.

Scratch that. I WILL do it again.

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ETA: I make the "road biked up a mountain" distinction here because I have mountain biked up a mountain before. Several times, in fact. However, I had to stop numerous times during those rides and oftentimes I ended up walking uphill part of the trail. So this is definitely a new accomplishment.

Ride the Rockies Training Plan, Harder Edition

I tend to follow the "official" Ride the Rockies Training Plan even though I'm not doing the ride, but I found this one on Outside Magazine's website.

It's a harder alternative that includes intervals instead of just saying what distances to ride. It's also more intense in that you're riding nearly every day as compared to 3-5 days a week on the other plan.

I might incorporate some of these intervals into my rides, but I definitely won't be following this plan strictly.

Still frustrated with the scale

I've been kind of stressed out about my slow rate of weight-loss again. I'm still averaging 1-1.5 pounds weekly, which isn't all that much when I think about what other people at my weight are losing. The only good thing about this slow loss is that at least it's consistent...for now.

I haven't changed much since my last post on this subject about a month ago. I'm still worried that since I'm losing so little now when I'm still about 50 pounds overweight, it's going to slow down to nothing as I approach my goal. I've still kept my calorie intake at 1,500 a day because it's something I want to do long-term and is completely manageable for me. Some days I eat fewer calories and other days I eat (or more accurately, drink...in beer) more calories, but it averages out to about 1,500 for the week.

But I have become more and more aware that most of my day is spent on the couch either working or surfing the internet. While I make sure to get some vigorous exercise in my life at least 5 days a week, I live a very sedentary life. And that may be the difference in my slow loss as compared to that of others, so it's definitely something I can work on.

With it being warm and dry and me living in a smallish town, I should be biking and walking places instead of driving to the store or to work. I'm not sure how much good that will do because I don't really leave my house much these days. This is not because I'm depressed or due to other equally sad reasons, but because my life is currently on hold and thus I don't really do much during the day.

By that I mean that I work part-time with one other person so I don't have to be in the office practically ever and since most of my friends have real jobs, I end up working from home a lot instead of doing things. Like I said, it's a very sedentary lifestyle.

Anywhos, in an effort to not get bummed about my slow progress, I used to tell myself that I wouldn't get hung up on the numbers on the scale and go by other indicators of weight-loss instead, but even that's not helping. I'm just losing weight veeeeeeeeeeeery slowly and it's absolutely infuriating because it really sucks to feel deprived all the time (yes, I'm at that point) and not get much out of.

I work so hard to limit my calorie intake by not snacking on crap food all the time, staying away from beer, and making sure I get my exercise. But I just don't seem to get as much return as I put into this journey. Some days I want to say "Screw this!" and eat everything I've been craving without limit, but then I remind myself that I am still losing weight, albeit slowly, so there's no need to go backwards and regain all that I've worked so hard to lose. And that's what gets me through to the next day. And then the cycle continues.

Vacation dieting

I was on vacation the past two weeks and thus away from my routine. My plan for the trip was to:

1. avoid tracking my calories because it would drive me crazy, and
2. not gain any weight.

Instead, I was going to focus on eating normal-sized portions and limiting my alcohol intake to "special occasions". And by that I mean, not drinking heavily every day. I was on vacation after-all and vacation means boozing.

I got back Sunday night and the verdict is...I'm down 1 pound!

That's honestly shocking because I only exercised once last week, drank a BUNCH of margaritas, ate double portions of fish tacos, and spent the rest of the time sitting under a palapa on the beach. So I didn't move much and consumed a lot, which is not conducive to not gaining weight.

Granted, the first week of vacation was very exercise-heavy (2 hill runs and a 3-mile run in California, and then 12-miles of running during Tough Mudder in Vegas) so maybe that evened things out a bit. But I'm still kind of shocked by the loss.

The Roommie and I next to my second favorite palapa, a day after finishing Tough Mudder in Las Vegas

When I weighed myself out of curiosity on Sunday night after getting home, I was up to 201.0 lbs, which is 7 pounds more than my weight when I left. I was really bummed about that because that's an insane amount of poundage to gain in 14 days. And I didn't think I had strayed from my plan all that much. All the anxiety I've been having about not being able to maintain a normal calorie intake to stay at a lower weight came roaring back. It was disconcerting.

Monday morning had me at ~196 and today I weighed in at 193.5 lbs. I discounted Monday's weigh-in because I was only three days removed from drinking (my weight is all over the place within three days of alcohol) so the "official" post-vacation weight remains at 193.5 lbs.

We'll see if this downward trend continues once I weigh-in tomorrow but regardless of what the scale shows, I'm really proud of myself for eating normally enough while on vacation without feeling deprived at all. Actually, I could've had a few more beers on the beach but I stayed away because a) I was getting sick and didn't need to impede my immune system's work by consuming alcohol, and b) I get super dehydrated after even one drink these days (I'm getting old) and didn't want to spend my vacation hungover on top of already being sick.

In short, it appears that living a life without needing to calorie count all the time is totally doable for me. There are still things I need to tweak and learn about my body before I can go into legitimate maintenance mode (and lose about 50 more pounds) but it's reassuring to know that I can count on myself to know when to stop eating.

Frustrations with my weight-loss, or lack thereof

I've been getting frustrated with my progress lately since the scale hasn't moved all that much in the last week. And by "all that much", I mean, at all. I've lost a measly four pounds in March, which doesn't seem like enough for all the effort I've been putting into this.

So I decided to take the plunge and get another BodyMedia Fit, because my old one (previously called a GoWear Fit) broke. I don't plan on wearing it on my arm like it's technically recommended because I hate answering questions about what it is. So I'm going to put it in my bra instead, which is just about as accurate as the armband as I've concluded from my not-so-scientific experiments with my old GWF (now BMF).

The only real thing that's been holding me back from getting another one of these is that it's not accurate for bike riding, which is my main source of exercise. So all in all, it won't give me a good number for most of my exercise because I've been biking a lot lately.

But what it is good for is my daily calorie expenditure. So anything I burn on top of just living my life is bonus in my book even if it is a bit inaccurate.

Since my weight-loss has been relatively slow (1.0 - 1.5 lbs/week) I've been worrying that once I drop down even more weight I will stop losing because my metabolism will slow down with the lower weight. And I really can't go below the 1500 calories I'm currently eating without going insane. With this BMF, I won't have to guess all the time about how much I can eat to still lose weight because it will (hypothetically) tell me how many calories I've burned in any given day. And then I'll be able to adjust my food intake accordingly.

Also, I can't stay on a tight calorie budget all the time because I'm starting to feel deprived, which is something I've been trying to avoid with this weight-loss effort. For example, yesterday my roommate had a panini with salami and cheese and all I wanted was to have some as well. But my calorie budget didn't allow for it. I had had a few too many beers on Monday so in order to keep the week's calories under 1500 daily, I couldn't allow myself another cheat day.

But I had also refereed three games on Monday and in doing so I had sprinted/jogged/walked 4.5 miles. So some of those calories had been burned off, I just didn't know how many. Having a BMF would've given me that information and would've allowed me to see if I could hypothetically eat some of the calories I had burned and still be under my deficit totals.

I've been so strict lately with my calories because I haven't been losing any weight and it's incredibly frustrating. So I'm trying to stick with the allotted 1500 to see if that will make me lose the weight I expect and it's been really hard and restricting. I don't want that feeling and I also don't want to be guessing all the time about what I should be eating and how much I should be exercising. So this takes all the guesswork out and allows me to live my life pseudo-normally. At least that's the hope.

Balancing weight-loss through cycling with the need for run fitness

I've been getting overwhelmed with the amount of fitness I need to do for the various activities I participate in and I can't seem to find a good way to consolidate workouts. For example, for refereeing, I need to work on my run endurance and speed but I much prefer to ride my bike than to run. And I also lose a lot more weight when I bike than when I run.

I've noticed that when I referee, I run out of gas towards the end of the game so I definitely need to work on that. So far I've been sticking to one run hill workout a week and biking the rest of the days, with a game of reffing thrown in there somewhere. It seems to be working well enough because I am faster and have more endurance than when I first began refereeing this winter/spring. But I have a long ways to go before I'm "match fit" as they call it.

To develop that match fitness, I need to run more and I've been thinking about adding another hill day and/or a long run/interval day. But I can't work out hard for more than 5-6 days a week because my body needs the rest so these runs cut down my number of biking days, which would suck because I really love to bike.

With that in mind, my biggest question is if cycling will have any sort of benefit for running, whether it's an increase in endurance or speed. Either one works for me. I haven't been able to find a straight answer so I guess I'm just going to have to experiment and see what happens.

Here is someone's post on a biking forum about his running and cycling:

And depending upon whether your running speed is limited by muscle-strength/efficiency or aerobic-capacity, cycling will help you in different ways.

For me, my legs never get tired on runs less than 10-miles at TT speeds (I played soccer for 15-years). However, getting faster running speed requires working on my aerobic system. Doing hill climbs and tempo workouts on the bike definitely helped my running speeds. :)

Also, I find that I can lose weight faster by riding my bike than by running. About 6-8lbs/month with cycling vs. 4-5 lbs/month with running. Lower weight helps in both running and cycling.

And another person's opinion:

I credit cycling with vastly improving my baserunning ability in softball, I went from someone who had to hit the ball well into the outfield to get on base to someone who can out run a slightly misplayed 5-3 infield hit. Made all the difference in bringing my average up to something close to respectable.

I'm not saying that training for sprinting wouldn't have acomplished the same thing, but it sure wouldn't have been as much fun.

I guess all this comes down to the question of, do I want to get fit for refereeing at the expense of losing weight? With running, I do lose weight but at a much slower pace than if I was biking, as the above poster mentioned. So I guess I have to decide what I want to focus on right now.

I think currently my priority is weight-loss and to do that I need to bike more. It seems that biking a lot will improve my aerobic fitness and in a roundabout way also give me more running endurance because of less weight on my body. Maybe once I reach my goal weight I'll focus more on running? We'll see.

So I think the solution is to do one run hill workout a week and one long run/interval training a week as well. If I have a game to referee then that can count as the long run/interval training day. The other three to four days of exercise will be biking, with hopefully one hill workout on that as well. I've found that I can't do more than 6 days of exercise in a week because my body can't handle it so that's going to be the breakdown for now.

This schedule looks good for now and the weeks when I follow this plan tend to make me happiest. I end up pretty tired, but it's manageable and actually somewhat enjoyable. Other variations either leave me drained or unhappy, neither of which is sustainable in the long run. So I'll stick with this for now and amend as I need.

By the way, I hate how I have to amend everything about my workout and food plans. I wish I could just stick to one thing that works instead of having to change it up all the time with changes in my weight and fitness level.

That's another reason I can't wait to hit maintenance in 50+ pounds...I won't have to worry about balancing weight-loss with fitness and will instead be able to work on the latter exclusively. Then again, by that point I'll want to add some significant strength training and figuring out how to do that most effectively will be another can of worms to sift through!