No more lettuce!

We (The Roommie and I) have been getting organic food delivered to us for about 3 months now, and you can tell it's not yet growing season. Most of the stuff we get is fruit from the tropics (mangoes, bananas, oranges) with a few hardy vegetables thrown in for good measure (squashes, root vegetables, cucumbers). Lately, though, we've been getting tons and tons of lettuce. Like, a bunch of it every week. And we are not good lettuce eaters. In fact, I hate lettuce, with a very deep passion. It has no taste, it takes up a lot of room in a bowl, and I feel like it's too much work to make it worth my while.

I know, I know. You're going to say that lettuce is the key ingredient in salads and I should be eating more green things anyway. But I refuse to make lettuce my green thing to eat. But I also hate letting food spoil so since we keep forgetting to switch out the lettuce for something else that would be much more delicious, we're stuck with eating four heads of lettuce before they go bad.

The Roommie hates letting things spoil more than I do, and so she's made it her mission to finish this batch of lettuce before it turns slimy. Her idea: cut all of it up and set it out on the table in plain view. Oh, and force it down my throat (just kidding about that last one!).

A crockpot of lettuce.

At one point last night, we had two massive mixing bowls of lettuce sitting on the counter, waiting to be eaten. But then we went out, imbibed (a lot), and got the drunken munchies. Only this time, we ate lettuce instead of chips. No joke. We killed one mixing bowl (about two heads of lettuce) between the three of us that were home. Wowsers! If these are my drunken munchies, then the only calories I have to worry about when going out for drinks is the beer. No more self-control issues when under the influence. Sweet.

I do have to say, I kind of like The Roommie's idea. Ever since she cut up the lettuce, I've been munching on it like it's chips. And I've had salad two days in a row now, which is highly abnormal. That may be due to the delicious raspberry balsamic vinegar she also bought, but whatever. Moral of the story is that her lettuce experiment has been a success! If only we could find a similar way to get everything else in our fridge eaten...

A blessing in disguise

My car has been having huge problems lately and thus I've had to go to the shop 3 times in the last week. Most notably, it was there all weekend and I was carless for a large amount of time (my fault for not picking it up...it was actually ready Friday at noon but Happy Hour, reading, and general lounging took priority over getting it back).

Anywhos, the point of this post isn't to complain that my car is a P.O.S., which it isn't. It's held up pretty well and there's actually not that much wrong with it now that the problem's been properly diagnosed.

The real reason that I'm writing about car troubles is that it's made me get off my butt and bike to school/work. I mean, I don't live that far from campus. In fact, it's a little over 1.5 miles from my front door to my first class. It's even closer to my office (1.3 miles). I should be biking every day, right?

Well, there's a small problem with this commute. There's a MASSIVE hill at about mile 1.

See? Totally flat at the beginning, then a 7% grade at mile one. If you don't get the idea, here's a little close-up:

I wouldn't mind it too much under regular bike-riding circumstances. (That's a lie. I'd be cursing the whole way up.) But my commuter bike weighs about 30 pounds (no joke, I actually weighed it) and I end up showing up to class with sweat stains up and down my back, and under my boobs and armpits. Not sexy. Gross, in fact. I even thought about buying a new t-shirt at the bookstore yesterday because I was so embarrassed.

Anywhos, another big problem I have is that it just hurts so bad to get up that thing. My quads burn, my lungs ache, and generally, it's just a miserable experience. Last time I pushed myself hard up that hill (and by "hard" I mean I pedaled just hard enough to not stand in place), it hurt to breathe for 2 hours afterward. So yeah, not my happy place.

But with my car in the shop and me not wanting to leave my house 40 minutes early to catch the bus when it takes less than half of that to bike, I was left with no choice but to try biking again. I used to be too embarrassed to even think about walking my bike up that hill (confidence issues, you know) so I suffered pedaling up that damn hill. But now I don't care. It's the only way I can get myself to consistently bike to work/school instead of driving and paying an arm and a leg for parking and gas. And this way, I can stay on campus as long as I want/need without worrying that I've exceeded my maximum parking time. And burn some calories on a daily basis. So many positives!

So yeah, the car problems have been a great blessing in disguise. It was perfect timing for me to have to take it to the shop because it's finally warming up consistently (if you ignore the snow storm we got yesterday) and thus it doesn't hurt nearly as much to bike everywhere. I even biked to get dinner the other day, instead of taking the car. Granted, I should've cooked something at home instead of buying 740 calories of Panera Bread, but little steps, little steps.

Getting it out of my system

It seems like I'm a once-a-week writer nowadays. That's ok with me for now since I've been swamped with work and school and rugby, but I've noticed that the more I write, the more involved/dedicated I am to weight-loss and thus I lose better. And since I haven't been posting much lately, that probably means I've been slacking with exercise and eating well. And that is very correct.

Acutally, I've been really disgusted with myself lately, mostly because instead of doing something about my weight and unfittedness (I totally just made up a word), I've been wallowing. And wallowing is not the way to go. The only way this weight will come off is if I work at it. I'm not going to one day wake up and be skinny. It's going to take a lot of sweat and tears (and probably blood, considering the fact that I'm back to playing rugby). I need to make exercising a habit and do it even if I don't want to. The question should be, "Would you rather be thinner and healthier, or sit on the couch for the hour or so it'll take you to burn some calories?" The answer should always be the former, although it hasn't been that way lately.

I've been using the excuse of studying and work instead of exercise, but in reality instead of doing something productive like that, I've been either watching TV or messing around on the internet. As a result, my weight-loss has stalled and my grades have been suffering. (That's another source of frustration...I know I can get straight-As. Not A-s, but A. It's just a matter of putting in the work. And I've been slacking lately and thinking I can get away with putting minimal work and still do well. Not!)

Ok, enough self-pity and beating myself up. I just needed to get that out of my system and get on with it. I figure if I say it enough times, then something's bound to change, right?

Exhausting weekend, now get back on the wagon!

The rugby game went really well. They even got some shots of me running.

But with it being the first warm day in months and also just being Colorado, it was super dry and thus super exhausting to run at all. I had parched lips within 30 seconds of stepping out onto the field. Yikes! So yeah, I need to get in better shape.

In the end, I got to play about 23 minutes, which was plenty, and I had an absolute blast. The Roommie and I devised a running plan to help us get fitter and so far it hasn't worked. Well, it's mostly because I haven't been planning or scheduling the rest of my life accordingly and thus need to wake up early to do homework/study instead of the planned run. So this week's plan has been shifted by a couple days and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it all.

The same goes for food. I had a menu planned out and everything for the week's meals but then we had a potluck on Friday for the team and it all went downhill from there. It's like a bad circle of messing up...I don't eat well if I don't plan out meals, but if something throws my meal plan off, then I stop eating well and it all goes to shit.

The moral of the story is that I need to get my life in order and everything will go from there. I do really well when I have a routine and everything planned out hour by hour almost. Or at least some sort of plan will do. (On that note, I'm worried about the month of May when school will be done and I won't really have any sort of schedule. Even rugby is done. That leads to sleeping until 1 pm and wasting my life away. No bueno.)

And here's a parting shot of me picking up the ball and knocking a whole bunch of girls over.

Unfortunately that last part is not pictured, just the part where my gut seemingly gets in the way of bending over. Damn painted on jerseys...they accentuate all the curves I don't want people to see!

Down a bit in poundage and up a bit in happiness

I'm back to a 2-0-something kind of weight (207.0 to be exact), "dropping" four pounds since Monday. I think a lot of that had to do with TOM so I'm not really celebrating at all since I didn't have to do much to lose this weight, besides wait out a natural biological process. But it's still nice to see that I haven't gained any weight since my last weigh-in, and actually lost a couple pounds since my last legitimate weigh-in. I suspect I'm actually even lower than that since I've been feeling super dehydrated lately, so I've been drinking a lot of water the last couple of days to try to get myself to where I need to be. In fact, just writing that made me reach for my water bottle and take a long swig of it. You should too.

As for rugby...oh, rugby. We have a HUGE game this weekend against a spectacularly good team and my original goal for the season was to start in this game. Well, I'm not and I'm supremely happy about that. I mean, I would love to be good enough to start, but I know my fitness is not even close to that needed for an 80 minute intense match. So my amended goal was to be rostered (a substitute) and that's exactly what happened, which is awesome. I do hope I get to play a few minutes, although I don't think I'll be put in unless someone gets hurt, which is a bummer.

The good news on that front is I've beat out one of the girls I didn't think I could for a spot on the roster, and my coach has been training me in a new position, which would give me more depth. She also does think I'm rather good and so there's hope for me to make the starting side a few times next season if I keep improving (and in my opinion) get my fitness up and lose some poundage.

BUT, I'm kind of worried about the girl that's in my current position because she's super good, super fast, super strong, and everyone loves her. So there's no real hope of regaining my spot back, I think. Not only would I have to spend the summer in the gym (in addition to swim, bike, run training, work, and school, and some summer relaxation) to get stronger and fitter, but I would also have to learn a whole new position so that I don't have to compete against her.

If you're thoroughly confused about positioning, I'm mostly talking about the scrum. I usually play #3 on this team, have played #2 on other teams, and am now training to be #1 (at the top of the picture #1 is above the white #2, actually to the left of him).

The two positions, #1 and #3, are very similar except #3 goes into a scrum with both shoulders in, while #1 only has his right shoulder in and pushing. And that's what's been throwing me off. That, and binding on with my arm in the right spot.

Images courtesy of The Telegraph and Wikipedia, respectively.

How rugby relates to weight-loss

I'd been really discouraged lately in the rugby practice and triathlon training and general life exercise departments. It seemed that everything was hopeless and impossible to achieve. There are some really good girls on the team that I wouldn't be able to edge out for a position in the starting side. I didn't have enough hours in the day to get in all the swims, bike rides, runs, lifting, plyometrics, and HIITs that are necessary for triathloning and playing rugby. And that doesn't even include work and school. And lastly, 80 pounds is a lot to lose.

But then I had an unexpected talk with my rugby coach and all became clear. She doesn't think I'm too short to play a few of the positions I was worried about being competitive for (now I can play 3 positions, instead of just 1 that I previously thought). She also thinks I'm doing really well and improving steadily. And I got the roster for Saturday's game and I'm subbing in for a very important game. So instead of being completely discouraged about rugby, I am now hopeful that with enough hard work, I can make accomplish all of my dreams.

How does this relate to weight-loss, you ask? Well, part of the reason my skills aren't where they used to be is because I'm not fast enough to get to where I need to be to demonstrate my knowledge of rugby. I don't have the strength or endurance to hit as hard as I'd like to because I also have to run for 80 minutes. So it becomes a trade-off: don't hit as hard so I can run a bit longer. And a lot of these problems have to do with carrying too much weight on my gut, thighs, back, you name it.

After the talk with my coach, I had a huge epiphany and my hope was restored in this whole losing weight process. If I could commit to running/exercising and losing weight like I would like/need to, it would benefit so many different aspects of my life. I could run faster in rugby and therefore be better. I could keep up with all the fast people in triathlons. And I would be much more confident in my appearance, which would increase my self-esteem exponentially.

I don't know why I thought losing weight was stupid, impossible, and pointless. Obviously it's not going to happen overnight, but the benefits of it are numerous and the hard work is totally worth it!

A little recap of the past month, mostly rugby-related

Since I've been away from the blog so long, I figure a recap is in order. Last I wrote, I was on my way to San Diego to play in my first rugby tournament in two years. It was an absolute blast and I realized how much I've missed the sport during my time off. I also realized how horribly out of shape I really am and how much I totally suck. The most frustrating thing is knowing that I used to be good and fit and strong, and those last two things are preventing me from being the first thing.

Prior to that tournament and the beginning of the season, my goal was to start on the D1 side on April 2nd against one of the best rugby teams in the nation. But the more I played and practiced, the more I realized that that's not a possibility and my priorities have since changed. The only way I could be good again is if I became faster, stronger, and fitter, and obviously that wasn't going to happen overnight.

So my new priorities for this season are to get fit and strong for rugby, and in the process, shed all this weight. I can't possibly be fast and carry over 200 pounds on my 5'4" frame. At my peak rugby awesomeness, I weighed 165-ish (I don't remember exactly) and even then I had weight to lose.

One of the awesome things about this rugby team is that it's got lots of support from the town we play in, with regards to money for travel and trainers for injuries and such. But they also have a training staff that gives us workouts depending on the stage of our season. For example, winter was very lifting-heavy and the spring is more agility and speed-based. I'm not sure what the summer will bring, but I'm excited to use that time to get stronger and ready for our competitive fall season.

And about my weight-loss, eh? I'm not sure where I stand. I think I haven't gained or lost any weight since I last blogged, which is a good thing. I've started riding my bike at least a couple times a week and running about as much. Between rugby practice and school and work, I don't know where to fit in the extra lifting, plyometrics, and interval training that's been added to the bi-weekly rugby practices. I've started cooking again instead of eating out as much, which is always great for the gut and the wallet.

However, I haven't been to swimming in over 3 weeks. I've tried going to other workout times since 6 am is a bit early for me, but I didn't like them nearly as much as the Tuesday/Thursday ones I'd been attending. I think a lot of the dislike for other sessions had to do with my attitude towards being slow (entirely my fault for not maintaining my fitness) so that may've factored into it, but I also miss having my weekly routine and the accountability of a set session. I'm going to start going again tomorrow, I think. It has to begin somewhere.

So that's that!

Lastly, here's a photo from a game a couple of weeks ago. I'm #3 on the right.

Lordosis, another problem I have due to excessive couch sitting

My lower back has been hurting a lot lately, especially when I read on my stomach in bed, or spend a long time sitting on the couch. I asked our trainer for the rugby team what the deal was and she says I have lordosis, which is an excessive inward curve of the spine. She gave me some stretches to do and I'm not sure if they've helped, probably because I haven't been doing them as often as I need to.

Here are the causes:

• Tight hip flexors
• Weak core muscles
• Poor exercise form (or no exercise form)
• Weak gluteal muscles
• Obesity (of course)

I have noticed lately that my core muscles have gotten noticeably weaker and also that my hip flexors are sometimes pretty tight. So those seem to be relatively easily fixed problems, and they would aid in my overall goal of getting stronger and fitter this rugby season.

I've found some good stretches/exercises to incorporate into my life while I'm watching the daily TV show. They're not unpleasant like running while watching TV (which I can never seem to do) so I think I'm more likely to get them done.

And they are the following (from www.stronglifts.com):

• Bridges. Glute activation & strengthening exercise. Raise your glutes off the floor by squeezing them as hard as you can. 3 sets of 10 reps.
• Birddogs. Single leg glute activation exercise. Brace your abs & keep your spine neutral. Push back with your heels. 3 sets of 10 reps both sides.
• Hip Flexor Stretches. Use padding for your knees. Keep your torso perpendicular to the floor & your lower back neutral. Think upper leg back, not going down. Squeeze the glute of the back leg. 3 sets of 10 secs each side.
• Hamstring Stretches. Leg Swings. Chest forward, shoulders back, lower back straight & knees unlocked. Look forward. Move your legs, keep your pelvis still. If you can’t get high: keep working at it. Flexibility will come. 3 sets of 10 reps each side.
• Strengthen Abs. Turkish Get-ups are my favorite. 5×5, increasing the weight every session.

And some more from Livestrong:

• Hip Flexor Stretches. You can also manually stretch your hip flexors by standing up, bending your knee and holding on to your ankle. Tilt your pelvis forward as you pull the leg back. Hold the stretch for at least 30 seconds.
• The Pelvic Tilt. The pelvic tilt position is the opposite of an arched back. If practiced daily, it can help correct a lordotic posture. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Inhale to prepare. As you exhale, tilt the lower part of your pelvis from the floor, forming a hollow bowl between your pelvis and your navel. Perform about 20 repetitions daily.
• Stability Ball Bridge. The stability ball bridge strengthens your gluteal muscles. Since the ball is an unstable object, it requires deep core activation. As such, this exercise will work your butt and your deep abdominal muscles. Lie on your back with your calves draped over the ball. Begin with the pelvic tilt. Then, squeeze your butt until you are in a bridge position. As you roll down, try to feel each vertebra touch the floor. Make sure that the lower back touches the floor before the pelvis. Perform 12 repetitions every day.
• Stability Ball Crunch. Strengthening your abdominal muscles is essential for correcting spinal lordosis. Performing your crunches on a stability ball will make use of your deeper abdominal muscles. Position yourself on the ball so that you butt, lower back and mid-back are against the ball's surface. Rest your fingers at the edge of your head. Inhale to prepare. As you exhale, curl your upper torso so that your rib cage moves toward your pelvis. Perform 20 repetitions daily.
• Knees to Chest Stretch and Heel Slide. Lie on your back with your knees bent. Lift both legs from the floor, and draw your knees to your chest. Hold the stretch for 30 seconds. Then, lower one heel to the floor. Keep the opposite knee close to your chest. Slide the other heel along the floor until the leg is straight. Keep your back flat on the floor the entire time. Perform eight repetitions on each leg.

So I think the plan will be to do a combination of these every day as well as some general strength and endurance training. More on that later.

A compromise, or not really

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I'm going to continue losing weight if I can't stick with any sort of food accountability program. I need to know what's going into my mouth so I don't go overboard and undo all the work I've been putting in with exercising and all that. I've also stopped wearing my GoWear Fit that measures how many calories I burn daily. It just got annoying trying to hide it depending on the clothes I was wearing that day and dealing with the inaccuracies of putting it somewhere else that wasn't my arm (part of the reason calorie-counting was driving me mad...knowing that no matter how hard I tried, my numbers weren't exactly right).

Anywhos, I figured since neither calorie counting nor the GWF were totally accurate, I may as well stop driving myself crazy trying to be perfect and go with estimates. At this point, I have a pretty good idea of the amount of calories I would burn daily if I were to sit on the couch all day and do nothing (about 1900). And I know I can't be happy eating less than 1500-1600 calories a day currently (taking baby steps here) so any form of exercise, including biking to school, will get me at least a 500 calorie daily deficit, amounting to about 1 pound lost weekly on average. And that's how I have my goals set up right now.

And how will I know if I'm eating 1500-1600 calories a day if I'm not going to be calorie counting? Well, I don't plan on stopping that completely, but rather will lay off the details and relax a bit about putting things into SparkPeople. I generally know how much I'm eating since I eat the same things all the time, and the things I don't know I can easily look up or put into the Recipe Calculator on SparkPeople to figure out if I'm within my limits.

I really think not wearing the GWF is going to be enough to allow me to relax about knowing my exact numbers and deficits, which is a shame since I got it because I wanted to know exactly how much I'm burning daily to take out the guess factor of this weight-loss journey. I also really don't like the way it sits on my super fatty arms and sticks to my skin way too much so not having to deal with that has already made me much happier. I may rethink all that shortly, but for now that's the plan.

And in a case where I stop losing weight or am unhappy with how things are going, I plan on going back to the GWF to see if I'm estimating my burn correctly and if perhaps I'm not burning as much as I used to be burning. Same goes for calorie counting. If I do hit a plateau, I'm probably going to go back to diligently writing down everything that goes into my mouth to try to figure out why I'm stalling.

I'm hoping this plan will work. I'm not trying to lose everything super quickly, but I would like to see a steady decline.

In other news, it looks like my recent unintentional weight-loss is for real and not some kind of fluke. For the most part I've held steady since I stopped calorie counting and have somewhat gone down, which is nice to see.

Here's the most recent graph, including today's weight of 207.5, which is the lowest I've been since at least college graduation in June 2007 (not counting earlier this week, which I didn't believe so I'm discounting it). That's an almost 4 year low!

P.S. The red line is my goal of losing 1 lb. per week and the dashed black line is my real progress, which right now looks to be about 0.5 lb. per week. Not stellar, but considering I haven't been exercising much and eating a lot, it's not too bad.

Illness comes at inopportune times, and other complaints

Rugby practice started last week and my tournament is only a week away. Have I done any running lately? Nope, not at all. And that means next weekend is going to suck. Big time. If it wasn't an away tourney where plane tickets are required and wasn't taking place in my hometown, I probably wouldn't go because I'm so out of shape and don't want to leave a bad first impression with my coaches. BUT, I'm really looking forward to seeing my parents and don't really want to pay a butt-load to change flights so I guess I'm going home in a week. And huffing and puffing on the rugby pitch.

In preparation for this tournament, and the rugby season in general, I was planning on starting C210K again (for the 4th time now, I think). And then I got sick. I'm not talking about the sniffles or a slight headache akin to a hangover. This was more of a I-really-should-sleep-in-and-take-care-of-myself kind of thing where I had a hard time breathing after walking 5 minutes to class, and even when I could breathe it hurt a whole lot. And thus C210K is postponed for another day or two, until I can breathe semi-normally again.

So now I'm sitting on the couch, studying and munching on some junk food (because that's what I do to make studying for biology bearable) and regretting all the weeks since Thanksgiving that I spent doing what I'm now doing instead of making running and getting fit a priority. If I'd stuck with the plan back then, not only would I be running 10ks right now, but more importantly, I'd be 200 lbs instead of the 211-212 I'm at right now. And that's with a conservative estimate of 1 lb./week loss, which is much slower than what I usually lose at when exercising regularly.

I should be motivating myself to get fit instead of beating myself up about the past. Instead, I go on and on about missed weight-loss opportunities and dreaming of being skinny. Obviously that's never helped, but I keep doing it. I mope and tell myself that it's impossible for me to be thin. But it's not! I know so many people in my real life (not even counting the ones I've met online) who have set their minds to changing their lives and have succeeded. My mom is one of those examples. My cousins are another. So obviously it's not genetically impossible. I should get the hint.

But as I mentioned in the last post, I can't keep up with calorie counting. It gets too overwhelming. But without it, I eat whatever I want and don't hold myself accountable for what goes into my mouth, which is my downfall. I've thought about doing a generalized calorie counting kind of thing where I round up my meals, but I think not having an accurate count of what I eat would drive me more nuts than having to input every nutritional label for every ingredient in my meals.

Yup, I just came up with another excuse for why I can't calorie count and thus can't lose weight. How pathetic. Instead of making lots of changes at once and focusing on the negatives, I'm going to try one thing at a time, and remind myself of the positives. After-all, my now early-morning swimming routine (yes, it's a routine!) started when I forced myself to get out of bed at 5:30 one day after falling asleep at 3 am. If I can keep up with something that goes so much against my sleep clock, I can do practically anything.

So...the positives:

1. I've made biweekly early morning swims a routine, even if getting out of bed that early is a struggle. Every. Single. Time.
2. I now eat breakfast every day. And I feel weird on the very few days that I skip it. This did not used to be the case, and I could go hours before putting anything in my mouth (then I'd eat unhealthily, but that's another story). Now I have to eat breakfast otherwise my day is off. And I get up early to make sure this happens. Weird.
3. I've lost over 10 pounds since September, part of it over the holidays when I wasn't exercising or calorie counting, but simply watching what I eat and trying not to over-eat. Not much of an accomplishment at my weight or that span of time, but I haven't really stuck with a workout or eating plan. I've just cut down on beer and junk food. And what a difference that has made!
4. I lost 5 pounds in the span of 10 days when I was calorie counting and swimming twice a week, meaning that if I keep my exercise routine the same as it is now and simply start being accountable for what goes in my mouth I will lose really quickly.
5. I learned to enjoy cooking, and started looking forward to eating left-overs.* I've made new recipes part of the weekly rotation, and I also can almost replicate my mom's delicious soups. Next up is learning her meaty meals.

The end. And now I try to apply this positive attitude to sticking with my resolutions.

*To give this accomplishment some background info, I used to not be able to eat left-overs. Like, they repulsed me, especially the ones that coagulated when put in the fridge and didn't really un-coagulate when reheated. I've somewhat gotten over that, but I still can't eat certain things.