Polenta in a rice cooker

I love eating polenta but I don't like making it. You have to stir it every 2-3 minutes for up to half an hour. I have better things to do with my time.

So I discovered how to cook polenta in a rice cooker. Here it is:

Servings: 4
Ingredients:

• 1 cup coarse polenta

• 4 cups water

• 1 teaspoon salt (you may want to adjust this to suit you)

• 2 tablespoons butter or other oil such as olive oil

Directions:

1. Place the ingredients into your rice cooker.
2. Cook on the white rice setting until done (15 - 20 minutes).
3. Add cheese (2 tbsp Parmesan) or other ingredients just before serving.

This usually takes 15 - 20 minutes, which is so much faster than stirring for that time!

It's working!

Changing my calorie burning goals was a GREAT idea. For example, today I ran 1.5 miles, sprinted up a hill (the hill) 6 times, and walked home 1.5 miles. I'm on track to burn 2160 calories for the day.

Normally, this would upset me because with that exercise I still won't reach my goal of 2,300 calories burned. But now that I've changed my goal to 2,000 calories, I'm absolutely ecstatic. With this progress, I'm guaranteed to lose at least a pound a week if I keep my food intake under control. It's great to know that I'm actually losing weight with all the effort I'm putting in lately.

The same feeling of "Awesome! I've burned a ton of calories." came yesterday after a morning of snowboarding. In the 1.5 hours I actually spent on the mountain doing things, I burned about 600 calories more than I would've had I been sitting on the couch. For that much exercise, 600 calories isn't much. But considering I only need to burn 2,000 burned daily, it totally busted that goal and I was incredibly happy with myself.

Moral of the story (and my motto in life): Lower your expectations and you'll never be disappointed.

Just kidding. The better moral is to have realistic expectations so that the motivation to achieve them is not lacking.

My kryptonite

This holiday season has taught me that beer is not the only thing that I simply can't have in moderate quantities. You can add chocolate, blue cheese, deli meat, and any sort of baked good to that list.

I've been pretty good about controlling my drinking for the past two weeks in that I haven't had much beer or wine but have instead saved it for "special occasions". There have only been three of those, such as when family friends came over for dinner, our family Christmas Eve dinner, and another dinner party right before New Year's. I imbibed A LOT during those times, but didn't have even a sip of alcohol on the remaining days.

However, I ate a lot of chocolate, blue cheese, deli meat, and any sort of baked good. For example, I ate a whole circle round thing of blue cheese between yesterday and today. I just couldn't control myself. It was soooooooo good.

As a result, I'm pretty sure I gained a bunch of weight during these past two weeks, and most of it is not due to alcohol. I weighed myself last night (big mistake) and was up nearly 10 pounds. TEN POUNDS!!! Most of that is alcohol water weight and also the food I'd consumed that day, but only a few of those came off between last night and this morning. I can feel my gut being bigger and I'm up a belt hole, so I'm pretty sure some of that weight gain is here to stay.

The good news is that I know the recipe for losing weight and I'm also really good at keeping my kryptonite foods away on a day-to-day basis. It's these vacation weeks that do me in! At home, I can have a piece of chocolate one day, some cake another day, and a couple of slices of prosciutto later in the week. But at my parents' house or elsewhere on vacation, I consume them all in one sitting. It's pretty bad, like all sense of self-control is gone and I revert back to my fat self desires.

The even better news is that I'm headed home this evening and can start having willpower once again. I've even developed some sort of training plan that involves lots of running because it's too cold to bike and I can feel my muscles atrophying. Soon enough, I'll be back on track to get skinny by the summer.

Changing my goals

I'm having a very hard time losing these last 20-25 pounds and I've finally decided to stop putting so much pressure on myself about it. It's not very realistic to continue losing at the rate I was when I first started this process 65 pounds ago. My metabolism is significantly slower and the winter season is not conducive to me losing weight quickly.

So instead of striving to lose 1.5 pounds a week, which was a struggle even when I was bigger, I'm going to aim for 1.0 pound of weight loss per week. It'll take longer to get to my goal weight (I should reach it July 9th instead of May 21st) but the difference is only about six weeks and during that time I'll be more sane about everything.

In the meantime, I can focus on getting an adequate amount of exercise in 5 times a week instead of beating myself up for not working out enough to get to 2300 calories burned each day. The previous method is no longer sustainable and sustainability is what I'm going for in the long run.

For now, then, my goal is to eat 1,500 calories each day and burn at least 2,000 calories, which gives me a 500 calorie deficit daily and keeps me on track to lose 1 pound each week. If I burn more, then awesome, but I'm tired of getting down on myself because I should be so happy with my progress thus far.

My other goal is to minimize muscle loss since I'm not riding my bike nearly as much as I used to. I've lost about 1.5 pounds of lean muscle in the last six weeks so I've added leg workouts to my gym routine (I've started going to the gym regularly!) in order to minimize that loss. I really like the way my legs look right now and I don't want that to go away simply because the seasons have changed.

Prom!

My old rugby team holds a banquet each winter for everyone involved in the club: women, men, old boys, and high school players. It's rather formal and turns into a huge party, so we've affectionately named it Prom.

For the first time since I started going about five years ago, I was actually excited to wear a dress this year. I've never liked dresses, even when I was a "normal" size so this was a rather big achievement for me. I'm still not entirely happy with my body and how I look in dresses, but I put all that aside and enjoyed the evening.

Here are some pictures (I'm in the turquoise):

Vacation weight

It hasn't been a good week for me self-esteem-wise. After spending a week in Mexico, I weighed myself today and have gained 6 pounds since my last weigh-in two weeks ago. Some of this may still be water weight due to booze (I'm only four days from my last drink) and I may be getting my period soon so that may also be influencing my weigh-ins. But it's disheartening nonetheless.

In Mexico, I only drank alcohol on two occasions because I didn't want to consume too many empty calories. I was already eating too many chips and I really didn't need to add any more crap to my diet. I even went on two 3-mile runs because I was being too sedentary. So how the hell did I gain so much weight?!

I'm really hoping that most of this goes away because it's so disheartening to see such a big gain in such a short amount of time. It's like I can't let loose at all because all the weight will come back super quickly.

That thought is really scary because if I gain weight so easily, then maintenance will more resemble weight-loss than living a normal life, which is the opposite of what I was hoping for. I can't be so restrictive for the rest of my life.

I planned this weight-loss journey so it would be sustainable forever, but I was hoping that I'd be able to eat a bit more after I reached my goal weight. Like, increase my daily average from 1,500 to 1,800 calories. I'm not looking to binge eat here.

Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case. Bummer.

On a happier note, here are a couple of pictures from vacation:

We went deep sea fishing in the rain. I really like how I look in this photo.

The view from our condo. It was glorious.

Burning enough calories

I've been struggling a lot with getting enough exercise these days to lose weight consistently. Because I'm down over 65 pounds, I don't burn nearly as many calories simply living as I used to even a couple of months ago. On a semi-lazy day, I barely get 1900 calories burned, as compared to 2,200 - 2,300 back in the day.*

As a result, I very rarely get to my target of 2,300 even with a moderate amount of exercise. It used to be so easy to reach my target and now I have to work really hard to get that daily burn, which I often don't get.**

With the winter already here, I can't go out on my bike nearly as regularly as I used to so I'm limited to getting my burn through running. Although I've gotten past the "I hate running" stage and am now at the point where I don't mind it, I still don't want to be running 5 - 6 times a week. So I need to find another exercise that's fun and burns some calories if I want to keep losing weight through the winter.

I originally wasn't going to get a ski pass because I haven't used it for the past couple of years. But snowboarding seems like the perfect winter exercise outlet that can also be incredibly fun. So instead of the regular all-season pass, I think I'm going to get a few 4-pack tickets, meaning four days at a variety of resorts. It ends up being a bit cheaper than a regular ski pass and also gives me the flexibility to go to several different resorts. And I know I won't get more than 8 - 12 days of skiing in this season so it works out well.

There, it's decided. I have a new wintertime exercise plan!

---
* I know all this because I wear a BodyMedia Fit, which measures precisely how many calories I burn each minute of the day.

** I've also been eating more than my allotted 1,500 calories daily, which means my weight-loss has stalled. All of that is incredibly frustrating and I'm determined to change it. I also don't want to lose all the muscles I gained from biking so I think I'm going to have to start going to the gym more regularly. I hate the gym, but it gets the proper results.

Overwhelmed with figuring out a training plan

Every time I restart an activity, I get overwhelmed with wanting to do it perfectly. For example, if I'm going to ride my bike, I feel the need to get the right combination of intervals and long rides to increase both my endurance and my speed. I also have to balance that with a running training plan to increase my fitness for refereeing. All of that makes for a very full exercise calendar that I know I won't be able to stick with. So something has to go.

Most of this "stress" is due to me not wanting to lose any of the fitness and muscles I've worked so hard to gain. I love the way my quads and my calves look right now and I feel like I'm losing some of that muscle definition because I'm not doing the things I was doing to get that, namely biking up ridiculously steep mountains several times a week.

However, I know that with this weather, it's not feasible to keep up the training regimen I had in June or July. I'm lucky if I get one good biking day a week and I don't want to waste it on doing NCAR repeats, because they're not all that fun and I go really slowly. I'd rather be out on the open road enjoying the wind going through my hair and seeing the mountains in the background.

The solution to all this is to use the off-season to build up my running base for spring rugby season, and enjoy the few nice days we'll have to ride my bike on the open road. No stressing about doing the right type of runs or exercise, but instead focusing on getting outside and moving. Runners have nice quads too, right? So all won't be lost by dropping biking for a season.

I still need to lose a few pounds so until I'm super lean, I won't be at my peak running fitness anyways. I might as well enjoy my bike rides as respites from sprint workouts instead of stressing over getting them perfectly right.

Continuing on when I'm content with my size

I'm currently at a weight and size that I find somewhat acceptable. I'm just below my lowest weight in college, but I'm significantly thinner because I have more muscle than I did back then. I consistently fit into size 12 pants and small/medium t-shirts, so it's not a bad place to be.

As a result, it's been really hard to stay focused with my exercise and calorie counting. I could be happy the way I am right now, which is what makes continuing on so difficult. But when I was this weight in college, I thought I needed to lose about 20 pounds. So clearly I'm just content with my size when compared to what I was last year (225 lbs). But if I were to look at my weight objectively then I know I would still like to be thinner and leaner.

This doesn't mean that I've been stuffing my face with chocolate, ice cream, and beer (with the exception of Halloween). I've been pretty good about controlling my cravings. But I've consistently been eating 1,800+ calories each day, which is more than the 1,500 I strive for daily. Additionally, I haven't made much effort to keep a consistent exercise routine. All of that has resulted in me not losing any weight.

For the past couple of months when I've stalled in weight-loss, I would tell myself that "I'll get back on the wagon tomorrow." But tomorrow has been nearly every day and I haven't changed anything. It's so easy to get back to my old habits of putting this thing off for weeks and months at a time when I'm decently happy with the way I look. the fact that I've been getting lots of compliments about my size doesn't help with finding motivation to go on.

This one garnered comments such as, "Looking GOOOOOOOOD!! So Fit and trim - oh la la."
I don't think it's that spectacular (look at that left thigh!) but multiple people have commented on it so maybe I'm being too critical.

I need to put my foot down and get serious about this because there is no ideal time to lose weight. There will always be something that gets in the way, whether it's rugby season and thus lots of drinking on weekend nights or bike rides that end at a bar.

Luckily, there's a big formal banquet in about a month that provides good incentive to slim down and tone up. I already look fabulous in some of the dresses I've tried on but I want to look even better. Mostly, I've needed a reason to get my butt to the gym to tone up my arms because my bingo wings have got to go. Dresses at a formal banquet are the perfect incentive for that!

I'm back, and proud!

I've taken a bunch of time off from the blog and from the process of weight-loss. I've continued to count my calories and make sure I exercise a decent amount of time each week, but I haven't made a real effort in either department.

For example, I've drank too much beer, eaten too much pizza, and spent way too many nights on the couch instead of moving around outside. Part of me is disappointed with this lifestyle, but another part of me is relieved because I needed that time to rest. At this point, I don't think I've lost any weight since late July or so, but I also haven't gained any, which is a different kind of success.

This weekend, a rugby referee asked me how much weight I've lost since I last saw him in early July. I lied and said 15 pounds, because that's how much I should've lost during that time. His reply? "Well, it definitely looks it." So apparently I look better. Another ref said I was hot. That one took me by surprise because no one has said that to me. Ever. When I told him that, he was surprised as well. Lastly, my former rugby teammates kept complementing me over the weekend saying I looked really good and very skinny.

All of this is to say that although I don't think I've lost any weight lately, I've come a long way since last Thanksgiving. Instead of dwelling on the summer of half-assed weight-loss, I should be very proud of the journey and the results of my efforts.

While this weight has led to positive comments and a lot of confidence on my end, I'm not done yet! I still have some ways to go, and I've already begun making that happen.