The sedentary life

We finally replaced the battery in our bathroom scale that measures body fat % as well as weight. I stepped on it today and the numbers were shocking. Here is a comparison over the years, since I like to have some perspective.

	2/12/10	2/28/11	2/28/12
Weight	212.8	204.2	220.0
%Fat	53.5	50.0	57.2
Pounds of Fat	113.8	102.1	127.0
Lean Mass	99.0	102.1	95.0

Wow, I've lost a lot of muscle and gained a lot of fat in the past year, most of it since last July. Yikes!

Finally biking outside

I recently got back into biking, first on the treadmill at the gym as part of rehab after my knee surgery and have now headed onto the roads. Today I did my favorite 10-mile loop to get back into the swing of things, and man, am I out of shape!

Usually it's my lungs that burn after a hard push, but today my legs gave out well before I got even close to being winded. And that means that I am tremendously out of shape. Oops. Good thing it's getting consistently warm enough to head outside, because I am so over sitting on the couch.

And a little inspiration:

Pizza galore!

Despite my not-really-New Year's resolutions (I'll post those up later) of cooking more at home, I still crave take-out food. So instead of going out and buying it, I've been recreating the same foods at home. And they really do taste better (for the most part) if you make them yourself. Yesterday was sushi, and today is pizza.

This time we bought pizza dough (I know, kind of cheating but it's raw and we have to cook it ourselves so it kind of works) but once I get more time and energy, I'll make the dough from scratch, and here's the perfect recipe from Smitten Kitchen:


Pizza, Updated
A slightly gussied-up version of my standby.

Yield: One small, thin-crust pizza. Can serve two with a big salad.

Dough
6 tablespoons warm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more water)
2 tablespoons white wine
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups flour

Assembly
Cornmeal for sprinkling
Flour for dusting counter
1/2 pound torn-up buffalo mozzarella
Few leaves of torn-up basil

1. Whisk wine, water and yeast in a medium bowl until yeast has dissolved. Add honey, salt and olive oil and stir. Add flour and no matter how dry it looks, work it with a spoon and your fingers until it comes together as a dough. Add more water one tablespoon at a time if you need, but in my experience, this is almost never necessary.
2. Sprinkle some flour on the counter and knead the dough for a minute or two.
3. If you’re like me and always trying to reduce the number of dirty dishes left at the end of the night, wash the bowl you made the dough in, dry it and coat the inside with olive oil. Put the dough in, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rise for an hour or up to two, until it is doubled.
4. [Easiest way to tell if a dough has risen enough? Dip two fingers in flour, press them into the dough, and if the impression stays, it's good to go. If it pops back, let it go until it doesn't.]
5. Meanwhile, make some sauce.
6. Preheat your oven to its highest temperature. If you have a pizza stone, sprinkle it with cornmeal and put it in the oven. Otherwise, sprinkle a baking pan with the same.
7. Once the dough has doubled, turn it out onto a floured counter and gently deflate the dough with the palm of your hands. Form it into a ball and let it rest on a floured spot with either plastic wrap over it (sprinkle the top of the dough with flour so it doesn’t stick) or an upended bowl. In 15 minutes, it is ready to roll out.
8. Do so on the floured counter until pretty darn thin, then lift it onto a cornmeal-sprinkled baking sheet or pizza paddle. Add the sauce, torn-up mozzarella and slivers of fresh basil.
9. Slide the pizza from the paddle to your preheated pizza stone, or just put the baking sheet in the oven as is.
10. Bake for about 10 minutes, checking at 7. Slice and serve immediately.

Ramping up the metabolism

I read this article called "How to get your metabolism moving" on CNN about little health tips to speed up that darn metabolism. For the most part, it's pretty straight-forward and stuff I already knew, but here are some bullet points to help myself remember the important parts:

• A pound of muscle at rest burns three times as many calories as a pound of fat.
• 45 minutes of any sweat-inducing exercise increases your resting metabolic rate for 14 hours after the workout (190 calories for a group in a study on average).
• A sleepless night reduces your resting metabolic rate by about 5% several hours into the next day.
• The morning after skipping sleep, you burn 20% fewer calories from diet-induced thermogenesis.
• Low blood sugar levels cause the breakdown of tissue to turn it into glucose to feed the brain, which in essence leaves you with less muscle which slows down the metabolism.

And now onto the tips for eating differently:

• Eat smaller meals with 100- to 200-calorie snacks in between to keep blood sugar levels even.
• Have a small snack (peanut butter on a graham cracker) to get your metabolism working while you sleep.

Like I said, pretty straight-forward but worth putting into list form so it's easier to reference.

State of my weight, 2012 edition

I've been trying to lose weight since I can remember, but I've only been writing down my weight since 2004, my freshman year of college. Some years, there aren't many entries (college and my time abroad), but more recently I've been keeping track semi-regularly. Of course, when I'm actively trying to lose weight, there's a weigh-in every day. So that data is skewed.

Here is the history of my attempts at weight-loss since freshman year of college:

Period	Minimum	Maximum
College	166.0 1/22/2005	198.5 4/3/2007
Post-College	202.0 11/4/2008	221.0 11/16/2009 1/3/2010 1/9/2010
Colorado	206.5 5/20/2011	221.0 11/16/2009 1/3/2010 1/9/2010

And by the years:

Year	Minimum	Maximum
2004	167.0 12/15/2004	172.5 11/28/2004
2005	166.0 1/22/2005	171.5 3/18/2005
2006	--	--
2007	196.0 2/14/2007	198.5 4/3/2007
2008	202.0 11/4/2008	202.0 11/4/2008
2009	209.0 5/17/2009	221.0 11/16/2009
2010	209.5 6/17/2010	221.0 1/3/2010 1/9/2010
2011	206.5 5/20/2011	219.5 9/19/2011

I can explain each one of those mins and maxes (especially 2010 and 2011). When I'm low, it's because I've upped my exercise (triathlon training in 2010 up until June, and swimming in early 2011, then rugby this spring) even if my eating and drinking habits stayed the same. The weight crept back up as soon as I began sitting on my butt for whatever reason (traumatized by June triathlon so nothing in late 2010, and wrist injury this summer thus no biking and too busy for rugby this fall).

Conclusion:
If I exercise but don't change anything else about my life, I will lose weight.

As a parting shot, here's my weight during all these years in graphical form:

What do you mean I don't look Eastern European?

My bio professor wanted to meet with me and since it's a large lecture class, he just knows my name and not my face. I walked into his office today as planned and he looked at me funny, as if he wasn't expecting me. Finally he said, "How do you pronounce your last name?" I did that for him, and he still looked at me funny. He said something about me not being what he expected, and when I inquired further, he remarked that I don't look Eastern European and upon further questioning said something about me not having a thick accent.

Normally, this is not a big deal. But I'm insecure about my weight and assume everything has to do with that. When someone says I can't do something, I think it's because I'm fat. When they look at me funny, it's because I'm one of the few obese people in this town. When someone dismisses me and seems disinterested in having a conversation with me, it's my fatness pushing them away. You get the point.

So that's where my mind went as soon as he said I don't look Eastern European. I mean, girls from there are tall, blonde, and skinny. I only fit one of those stereotypes, and usually only in the summer when my hair has been bleached by the sun. I do have the high cheekbones and light eyes, but that's about it. And part of me (actually a large chunk of me...no pun intended) really hates the fact that I should be skinny because of my heritage but am not because I choose to eat lots of food and live the slovenly American lifestyle.

I get embarrassed when I'm back in Europe and people find out I live in the States, because I assume they think that I'm the stereotypical American. The thing is, no female in my family (extended or close, in Europe or in the U.S.) is thin. We all have curves, and we've all struggled with our weight. We're the child-bearers of the world and we won't die in a famine. At one point, my mom was super skinny but she was also anorexic and ended up in the hospital, so clearly it wasn't a healthy or natural weight.

I would love to be the Eastern European bombshell that my country is made out to be. A lot of people I talk to remark on how the women in my country are beautiful over-all, and it hurts me so much inside to hear that and know I'm the exception. I probably could be one of those girls. I don't know, I've never really tried. Hearing it today brought back those feelings of cultural insecurity not only with regards to my weight but also to the feeling that I'm letting my Eastern Europeanness slip away.

It's becoming hard for me to find the words to communicate with my brother in our native tongue and I trip up all the time when I try to speak with my aunts and uncles. It really scares me because I know I won't be moving back there anytime soon and my language skills are only going to get worse. I need to make an active effort in immersing myself in the language one way or another otherwise it's going to be lost for good. It's just hard and most of the time I don't have the energy to even try. It's a vicious cycle that is very similar to my weight-loss journey.

As you can tell, there are a lot of issues that were brought up with that one silly comment from a professor whom I never liked in the first place.

Rock climbing, canyoning, and non-goals

I really like making goals, if you couldn't tell. Most of them I don't keep, but for the ones I do accomplish, it's nice to see them crossed off a list. (I also really like making lists.)

I've been trying to lay off the list- and goal-making on this blog lately because I don't like publishing my failures, since inevitably I won't accomplish most of them. To me, goals are mostly whims that I think would be cool things to do. Or things I would like myself to learn to enjoy.

For example, I really want to get into rock climbing and canyoning. But I don't actually know if I'd actually enjoy doing either of those things. Growing up, I loved rock climbing but I haven't done that in ages. I'm not a fan of hiking (it's like walking but uphill and slower) so I don't know how appealing canyoning would be to me. I know it's not based on hiking, but hiking is a pseudo integral part. Ideally, I would be into these things, waiting for the weekend to come around so I could head up to the mountains to climb stuff.

I envision a much skinnier and fitter version of myself rappelling down a mountain, leaping over boulders, and kayaking down a river. I don't see the current fat me doing any of those things. And that's when I get sad.

So I guess the goal that I'm getting at is getting fit and thin enough not to feel like a burden on my  adventurous outdoorsy friends, and to feel like my weight is not slowing me down or making certain things impossible for me.

There is no specific weight assigned to this so I'm just going for general fitness for the coming spring and summer mountain biking season. We'll see how this goes.

I quit running

That's it, I give up. I'm officially quitting running. I feel guilty when I don't go, but I can't talk myself into going. So the end result is my feeling guilty and sulking on the couch. No bueno.

Running just isn't for me. As soon as my legs start hurting and it gets hard for me to breathe, I stop and walk. To get going again takes some serious self-talk and berating. I just can't push myself to suffer/be uncomfortable while running. It becomes a miserable activity that I dread and thus I don't go at all. I don't get faster because I quit too soon and stop going altogether, causing me to lose all the fitness I had worked so hard to gain.

Biking, on the other hand, is AWESOME! I can go hard and hurt and actually enjoy it. Shocker. Who would've thought that discomfort from exercise would be something I strove for? I can go for miles with my legs burning and my lungs gasping for air, and I don't quit. It's pretty sweet.

Since my wrist is allowing for this, I've started biking a lot. And by "a lot" I mean I went three times this past week, once in the rain. Btw, I hate biking in the rain, not because it's cold and miserable (which it actually isn't), but because that means I have to clean my bike afterwards. I don't like cleaning my bike. Anywhos, three days in one week is an accomplishment for me. So I'm proud.

So for now, I'm going to forgo running and stick with biking. Easy as that. Maybe once I get thinner and it becomes easier to run I'll go back to it. I mean, I'm going to have to run eventually to get back into rugby shape, so the training is inevitable. I just don't think now is the right time to force myself to do unpleasant exercise, when there is an activity that burns a bunch of calories that I actually enjoy. Nay, love.

Edit: After meeting up with a friend today at a rugby game, I agreed to run stairs and hills tomorrow at lunch with her. I have no idea what I was thinking. Actually, I do know. Even though I hate running, all the sports I love to play involve running. The same is the case with her, so it'll be nice to have someone to commiserate with about this whole thing. And hills and stairs are completely different than running for distance for no reason. For some reason, I don't mind them.

And here's the incline with the hills and stairs: 5 times up the hill, 2 minute rest, then 5 times up the stairs. This is going to suck.

Doing something with the food in the fridge

As I was sitting on the couch yesterday, exhausted by the week and that morning's early wake-up (I don't do single digits on weekends), I began to get hungry. I ran through all the possibilities of food delivery (too tired to go get anything myself), but nothing seemed appetizing. I've been eating out so much lately that all I really wanted was a home-cooked meal. There's really no place around here that offers that, delivery or not, except Whole Foods, and even they rarely have what I'm craving. That, and it's all leftovers that have been sitting out for a while...not something they whipped up just for me. I have issues with leftovers, if you didn't know. And by issues, I mean I don't eat them. Gross.

Anywhos, we get veggies and fruit delivered every Monday and usually half the stuff goes bad or it's eaten in its raw form. The fruit is usually eaten, but I have problems getting all the vegetables gone before they decompose in our refrigerator. We got some delicious (and normal!) stuff this past week so it would've been a shame to let it go to waste. And that's how yesterday's search for a good recipe began.

Let me tell you, finding an acceptable recipe that contains broccoli, leeks, and red peppers is harder than I anticipated. I mean, there's lots of things that use those ingredients, but not many use only those ingredients. Try to throw some celery and potatoes in there and you're screwed.

It's also incredibly difficult to find a simple stir-fry recipe. Most combine four or five different sauces that I don't have and will probably never find a use for. I'm hesitant to buy them if I don't know the outcome of my meal. If I like it, then awesome and I will definitely find a use for the sauce, but unlikely.

After much searching, I decided on a frittata, which is a cross between an omelette and a quiche. I remember the Italian family on whose farm I worked for a few months used to whip this up whenever they didn't feel like making a four-course feast for lunch or dinner, which didn't happen very often. I think I ate frittata about four times during the three months I was there.

I digress. It's essentially any leftover veggies, cheese, and/or meat, coated in a whole bunch of eggs, and fried/baked for 15 minutes or so. In other words, I could throw anything I found in the fridge into this thing! Although I've never been a fan of egg products (I don't know how to make scrambled eggs...for real) I remembered enjoying this so I gave it a shot. And I need to have more eggs in my diet in general, so this seemed like a good place to start.

So here is the recipe I tried. I used it to gauge the egg to veggie ratio as well as the method of cooking. You can also just fry the whole thing on the stove and then put that in the broiler to finish it off, but I prefer baking it for three reasons:

1. I don't have to stand over the stove and flip the eggs so they don't burn. Lazy wins out again!
2. I can then put the whole pie pan in the fridge for tomorrow, which takes up less space than a skillet.
3. I don't feel comfortable putting my skillet in a 350 F oven. I love it too much to let something bad happen to it.

Below is the recipe, courtesy of MyRecipes. You can substitute the veggies and the type of cheese, and also add meat. I used 6 whole eggs instead of 4 eggs and 4 egg whites, mostly because I only had 7 eggs but also because I didn't know what to do with 4 egg yolks. This makes 6 servings, by the way.

Frittata with Broccoli, Potato, and Leeks

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon butter
• 2 cups thinly sliced leek (about 2 large)
• 1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped broccoli, thawed
• 1/3 cup fat-free milk
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 large eggs
• 4 large egg whites
• 1 cup chopped cooked peeled red potato
• 2/3 cup (2.7 ounces) shredded fontina cheese, divided
• Cooking spray
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add leek; sauté 6 minutes.
3. Press broccoli between several layers of paper towels to remove excess moisture. Combine milk and next 5 ingredients, stirring with a whisk. Add leek mixture, broccoli, potato, and 1/3 cup cheese. Pour into a 9 1/2-inch-deep dish pie plate coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with remaining 1/3 cup cheese and breadcrumbs. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until center is set.
4. Preheat broiler.
5. Place frittata on center rack of oven; broil 4 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven; let stand 5 minutes. Cut into wedges.

Nutritional Information (Amt. per Serving)

• Calories: 185
• Calories from fat: 0.0%
• Fat: 7.7 g
• Saturated fat: 3.7 g
• Polyunsaturated fat: 0.9 g
• Protein: 13.2 g
• Carbohydrate: 15.8 g
• Fiber: 2.7 g
• Cholesterol: 137 mg
• Iron: 2 mg
• Sodium: 423 mg
• Calcium: 153 mg

The next step in my starting to cook again is using MyRecipe's 1 List, 5 Meals series where they give you a shopping list of ~30 ingredients with 5 different dinner meals to make from it. Although I don't always like all of their suggestions, most are designed for 4-6 people so I can eat leftovers in place of a meal I don't like. And these leftovers are always good for lunch too. Double win. As you can see, I'm trying to get over my dislike of leftovers.

The clothes I bought today

White polo shirt - XL and barely fit
White undershirt - L and fits tighter than spandex
Dickies bottoms (men's cut) - 42 x 30 and still snug in the hips

Something needs to be done about this.