Shrinking Jill

As you’re all aware, I’ve really been struggling with food lately. I go back and forth, having good days and bad days. Last Thursday was a bad day. Friday-Sunday have been pretty good days.  Who knows what lies ahead?

I don’t like dividing my life into good and bad – assessing the value of each day based upon how much or what I eat rather than just enjoying what life has to offer. There has got to be more to life than obsessing over food and I’m going to find it! Lately I’ve been hearing a lot about the concept of intuitive (or mindful) eating – Two Fit Chicks recently published a great podcast on it, and I also stumbled across a great website devoted to it called Honoring Health.

I’m intrigued by the whole idea – the possibility that you can eat what you want, when you want, and not gain weight.  Although this sounds like heaven to me, there is a catch – eating what you want doesn’t mean stuffing your face with everything in sight just because you’ve had a bad day.  You have to get back in touch with your body and stop eating for reasons other than hunger.  I am a bit cautious about diving into such a plan, mainly because it’s been so long since I really paid attention to my body’s cues that I’m skeptical it can really be done.  But if I’ve learned nothing else over the past few decades, it’s this: what I’m doing is NOT working.  I repeat, NOT working.  Yes, I’m 10% lighter than I was 9 months ago, but it’s just a matter of time before I lose the ability to white-knuckle my way through this journey and gain the weight back!  So in the spirit of adventure, I think I’m going to give this intuitive eating thing a try.  I bought a book today called (wait for it…) Intuitive Eating.  The authors are Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, and the cover promises that I will be able to make peace with food, free myself from chronic dieting forever and get to my natural weight.

Yes, I’m aware those promises sound pretty much identical to every other diet out there.  But that’s where the similarities stop.  Stay tuned, this could be an interesting ride!

Last night I binged on junk food. Pizza, ice cream, cookies and cheese curls – all the usual suspects.  Yesterday morning I woke up with great resolve to follow a healthy path – keep track of my food and think carefully about each of my choices – but things went awry somewhere along the way.

Rather than feel guilty about it, however, I’m going to do a play-by-play of yesterday’s events and see if I can figure out where things went wrong – and how I might avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

• 6:30am – 12 oz coffee, 1/3 cup skim milk, took in the car on the way to work
• 7:15 – KIND bar (coconut and almond)
• 8:00 – 2 cups diced watermelon, 8 oz water
• 8:30 – Still hungry!
• 9:15 – Went to cafeteria for a snack, evaluated options.  Each morning the chef bakes a fresh batch of Otis Spunkmeyer cookies, and puts any ‘rejects’ out on a plate for people to take.  Feeling virtuous, I bypassed the still-warm cookies, as well as the donuts, muffins, etc.  Ultimately I chose a tub of fat-free hummus with somme pita wedges and ate them at 9:30 with 8oz water.
• Calories in so far, about 500. Not bad, but I think I’d have done better if I’d replaced the KIND bar with a slice of whole grain & seed bread and some cashew butter – same calories but more satisfying than the KIND bar (and less sugar)
• 10am – found out that the scheduled group lunch was at California Pizza Kitchen. Yikes!  I decided I’d better plan ahead and looked up the nutritional information online.  After I fell out of chair in shock at the RIDICULOUSLY high calorie counts (even on the kids menu!), I got back up and decided on a half chinese chicken salad (376 cal) and cup of minestrone soup (157 cal).  Then I looked at the appetizer menu. MMMMMMM, avocado egg rolls….I love those!  At nearly 1200 calories, these were not an option.  But the sesame ginger dumplings were 326 for one order, which I thought was not too bad.  It would bring my lunch total to about 700 cal.  A bit on the high side, but I anticipated working it off later in the pool so I decided to skip the soup and get the dumplings.
• 12:30 – At lunch I ordered according to plan. Water with lunch, no bread.  The dumplings did not have much flavor but I ate every last one of them anyway! The salad was great however.  Unfortunately I did not feel full after lunch which is where things started to go really wrong.
• 2 hours after lunch I was still really hungry.  I regretted the dumplings, wishing I’d had the soup which would have been more filling for less than half the calories of the dumplings.
• 3pm – I left work a little early in hopes of hitting the pool before the rush. On the way home decided I’d better eat something before working out (oh how tricky the mind can be!) so I stopped off at Whole Foods for a spicy tuna roll with brown rice and avocado and picked up some steamed broccoli to go with it.  I intended this to be my dinner even though it was only 3:30pm, and then decided to add in a mini fruit tart (hey, there was loads of fresh fruit on top! Blueberries! Kiwi! Strawberries!).  I ate the sushi roll and the tart with about 8 oz water. The dessert was too sweet and not very satisfying (and gone in about 4 bites).  I decided to save the broccoli for later and headed to the pool, intending to swim and walk afterwards on a nearby trail.
• 4:30pm – Swam an easy 30 minutes and got out of the pool feeling good – got dressed and saw that the skies looked like rain so decided to head home instead of walking outside. On the way home I decided I was still hungry and started arguing with myself – eat a piece of leftover margarita pizza or the broccoli?  I got home before resolving the argument and saw my new BodyBugg waiting for me! The old one was broken but out of warranty – I talked the supplier into replacing it for me with a newer model at cost.  While I was ripping open the package I grabbed a slice of pizza and once I tasted it I lost all my resolve.  Next thing I knew I had inhaled 3 slices, then half a pint of ice cream, two huge peanut butter cookies and about 1/4 bag of cheese curls.  By 6pm I had consumed at least 5000 calories for the day, 3000 of which I barely noticed.

How did I feel afterwards?  Full.  Sluggish.  Incredibly thirsty.  And after chugging 3 glasses of water due to said thirst, sloshy.  It all happened so fast – I went from feeling fairly well controlled to eating like an automaton in a matter of minutes.  Mentally I was annoyed, disappointed and defeated.  One more wasted day, one more example of how I don’t follow through on my promises to myself.   On top of all that, I slept poorly – had to pee twice because of consuming so much water in the evening to quench the sodium-induced thirst.  and my stomach was gurgling all night digesting the toxic junk I’d put into it.  On top of it all I went to bed feeling guilty and woke up remembering that I really messed up yesterday, wishing I could rewind back to before eating that first piece of pizza.

So where did everything go wrong?   In retrospect I think this wasn’t a lack of willpower at all – in my opinion, the setup for failure started at lunch time.  If I could turn back time this is how the day would have gone:

• Since I really wasn’t enjoying the dumplings at lunch, they didn’t really register in my mind as food.  Once I decided they weren’t tasty I should have just sent them back instead of wasting the calories – and requested a cup of the soup instead.  The soup would have been much more flavorful, filling and certainly more nutritious.
• Instead of eating an early dinner I should have worked out on an empty stomach, knowing that after I get moving I usually don’t feel hungry any more.  I let my hunger become an emergency instead of putting it in the proper perspective – I definitely wasn’t so hungry that I felt weak or lightheaded (or even uncomfortable if I’m being honest with myself).  I just wanted a distraction from working out.
• I prefer to cook when I have plenty of time, when I’m not hungry, and when I’m in the mood.  If I’m hungry and not in the mood to cook I’ll eat the best tasting thing I can get my hands on that requires minimal preparation.   Pizza, ice cream, cheese curls…whatever is close by.   Keeping that in mind, I should have stopped at the store on the way home from the pool (instead of on the way there) and brought the sushi and broccoli home for dinner.   Eating the broccoli first would have assured I got my veggies in, and sushi is a very satisfying food for me so I wouldn’t have gone looking for the pizza in the first place.
• The pizza was definitely the trigger food – once I ate a piece all of the usual feelings surfaced and took control.  There’s a reason I stopped ordering pizza from the shop down the street and I should never have let myself start again – it’s too tempting!
• Rather than eating while I was distracted by my new toy, and thus not really registering that I was eating at all, I should have set a place at the table and eaten mindfully to make sure my mind and body fully experienced the food.
• Instead of the fruit tart I should have picked up a bar of dark chocolate – one of the few desserts that I find satisfying after just a couple bites.

Phew – that was a lot of dissecting but I think it was a valuable exercise!  When I break it down blow by blow it’s obvious to me that it wasn’t a lapse of willpower but rather a lack of planning that allowed me to fall back into old patterns.   If I’d implemented the fixes above I could have had a reasonable 2000 calorie day instead of a 5000 calorie disaster.  Today’s food choices were much more sound, even with junk food still hanging around the house (note to self, get rid of that stuff and don’t replace it!).

I think I’m going to use this type of exercise again in the future – learning from my mistakes instead of trying to forget and move on without making any adjustments in my behavior!

The night the race before I was a tiny bit nervous, but fortunately I had no trouble falling asleep around 10pm, with a 5am wakeup call.  After about 3 hours of sleep, however, I woke up feeling very panicky about the race and barely slept for the rest of the night!  Of course the more I tossed and turned, the more stressed out I got about my lack of sleep…and so on.  I ended up getting out of bed well before my alarm went off.

After a quick breakfast (a slice of whole grain toast with cashew butter and a big glass of water) I checked my gear bag one last time and discovered that one of my water bottles had leaked all over everything.  Grrrrrr!  It took about 15 minutes to take everything out, get dry socks and towels (and attempt to dry everything else off as best I could) and repack my bag.  Then I strapped my timing chip to my ankle, slipped on my flipflops (take note of my matching pedicure!) and hopped in the car:  Transition was scheduled to open at 6am, 2 hours before race start.  I wanted to get there reasonably early so I could get a decent parking spot but was surprised to find out that EVERYONE else had the same idea!  After parking the car and dragging my bike and gear 1/2 mile to the race site I waited in line for ‘body marking’ – essentially someone with a big black marker who was authorized to graffiti my arms and legs with my race number and age(!!!!).  After that, I was cleared to enter transition and finally started setting myself up around 6:30.  The transition area was already abuzz with activity:I found my spot and set up my own area:

Then I checked out the swim start and swim finish beaches:

If you look closely you can see the Philly skyline in the distance at the swim finish – I was thrilled at the prospect of swimming with that view in the background!

My friend Kathy arrived at about 7:30 and we waited nervously together for the start of the race:At 7:45 we were herded out of transition and into a holding pen to wait for our waves to be called.  I had to grab my wetsuit and leave my flipflops and camera behind – game on!  The first wave went off at 8am and there were about 20 waves in total.  Kathy and I were in the ‘buddy’ wave, which is designated for people that want to start together or for those that want to start near the end of the race.  When our wave was called I was told that everyone wearing a wetsuit would be going in their own wave – dead last – and I was incredibly relieved!  There were only a handful of us so there was no chance of having to swim in a mass of flailing bodies.

We entered the water at about 9:15 and waded out a few feet to the drop-off point where the river depth was about 15 feet.  After treading water for a couple minutes and getting some final instructions from the race coordinator regarding the swim course we were off!  After an initial rush of nerves I relaxed into the experience and started to enjoy the swim.  The view was lovely, the sun was shining and I just felt so lucky to be alive (wow, that sounds so hokey – but completely true).  There was a slight current to the river which threw me off course a couple times but otherwise everything went exactly as planned.  I even managed to pass a few women which made me feel great!  The 600 meter swim was over in 18 minutes and I climbed back on shore, searching for my bike while trying to unzip my wetsuit.  I grabbed a cup of Gatorade on the way, spilling most of it on myself (note to self, it is worth the extra time to stop and drink the Gatorade rather than trying to remove your wetsuit at the same time).  After I found my bike it took me about 5 minutes to dry off, put on the next set of gear and get myself mentally organized for the next segment.  I waved to some friends that came to cheer us on (shout out to Karen, Alison and Danielle for coming out to support us and for making those awesome signs!) and made my way to the bike starting line.

My legs were pretty shaky for the first few minutes so I took it slow and sipped some water.  My strength came back shortly after leaving the crowds and music behind, and the ride became very enjoyable – there were a handful of other riders on the road, the sun was still shining and the only sounds I could hear were the hum of bike tires, the shifting of gears, and the occasional bird chirping.  Heaven!  After a few flat miles on a tree-lined street that followed the river I hit the first hill.  It was challenging but not impossible and soon I was at the top.  Next I crossed over the river on Strawberry Mansion bridge, relaxing and drinking water, getting ready for the next hill that I knew was coming.  This hill was MUCH longer but not as steep and somehow seemed easier than the first.  The next several miles wound through Fairmout Park and showcased several historic mansions before crossing back over the river and returning to transition.  After waving to our cheering section I turned the corner and started the second loop.

Somehow the second loop was easier than the first and I actually started to pass a few people – even on the hills.  Thunderclouds were starting to roll in so I picked up the pace to make sure I was done with the bike portion before the rain started.  I felt a few droplets coming down the last hill and coasted into transition just as the deluge began.  Total bike time was just a hair under 1:20.  This transition was quicker (4 minutes) even though I took a moment to make sure my phone, car key and camera were stowed in a ziplock baggie brought specifically for that purpose.  After pinning on my bib number and grabbing a granola bar it was off to the run.

Run?  Who said run?  I tried to jog a few steps and realized that my legs were like jelly – so I walked slowly while gulping down some water and munching on my granola bar.  The rain felt good and I decided to take it easy and finish my snack before getting myself back into race mode.  A woman I’d passed on the bike section joined me for a few minutes but as soon as she realized how slow I was walking she took off and I continued on alone.

After a few minutes my legs felt better and I started to jog a few intervals.  One of the women that started in my wave caught up with me and asked if she could join me – her calves were cramping and she needed a run break.  We walked together at a brisk pace til the 1.5 mile point when she decided to pick up her pace again.  I did a few more intervals and realized my friend Kathy was about 100 yards back, walking with the designated last place finisher, Monica.  I waited for them and we finished the last mile together, running across the finish line with our hands clasped in the air.  My 5K time was just under 50 minutes and total race time was 2 hours and 37 minutes – 23 minutes less than my goal – a major accomplishment!  And although we crossed the finish line last, I was happy to note that we were not last time-wise.  Being in the final wave meant I started an hour after the first athletes – but I still completed the race faster than about 20 other women.  That alone made me happier than you can imagine!

After receiving our finisher’s medals and congratulations from the volunteers we grabbed a few snacks and packed up our gear, which was completely soaked through.  The uphill walk back to the parking lot was slow, but triumphant – both of us reveling in our accomplishment.  Then we hugged a quick goodbye and went our separate ways.

A week and a half later, I’m still unbelievably proud about this experience and excited for the next one – I registered for the SheRox Bermuda triathlon in November!

And as a reminder of how much fun the triathlon was, Karen saved the awesome signs she and her daughters made so I could put them at my desk at work!

I know I promised a race report a few days ago, but I’m still waiting for my finish line pictures to be emailed to me!  They said I’ll have them by Tuesday and I promise to post the whole report then.

In the meantime, I must say I’m feeling kind of a post-race letdown.  I thought achieving such a huge milestone would help me get back on track with my food but that hasn’t been the case.  Each day has started out with healthy choices and I usually make it through lunch, but then a switch gets flipped inside me somehow and I just don’t care about eating a healthy dinner.  I’ve been scarfing down about 3000 calories (or more) each day for the past 4 days and feeling defeated, disgusted, sad and panicky that I won’t get back on track.

Sigh.

My mental plateau has been going on for months now and this is very typical of my weight loss efforts – I am gung-ho for awhile and achieve modest success – I lose a couple sizes and start to get positive comments from others – and then suddenly my motivation disappears and my old habits begin to appear.

I know this happens to most dieters, but after 20 years of doing the same thing over and over you’d think I’d learn how to change!  This behavior must be rewarding me on some level or I wouldn’t keep it up – I just need to figure out what that reward is and replace it with something else.  Right now I’m just so unhappy and disappointed in myself, and can’t seem to rouse myself to do anything but sit in front of the TV for hours, making the occasional trip to the kitchen to scavenge up something to eat.

Double sigh.

Why does this have to be so difficult?

Woohooo – 237.6!  The scale was down 3.4 pounds from last week (most of which was water weight, I’m sure).  I am happy beyond words to see myself back in the 230′s!

Tomorrow you’ll see a race report – there was just so much to write about it’s taking me some time to put it all together!

Holy cow, I did it! This morning at 11:53 am I completed the SheRox Philly triathlon in about 2 hours and 40 minutes.  It was an amazing, incredible, memorable experience that I promise to write about tomorrow…after I get a good night’s sleep.

Go!

It’s SheRox eve and I’m puttering around the house organizing my gear bag for tomorrow. I laid everything out in order of use and WOW – I couldn’t believe all the stuff I’ll be needing!  Here’s a photo of everything:

My gear bag contains:

• flipflops to wear in transition before the swim
• timing chip and ankle strap
• small towel to lay my stuff on in transition
• Bodyglide to keep the armholes of my wetsuit from chafing my biceps
• wetsuit
• my favorite stripey swim cap that doesn’t pull my hair out
• white swim cap to identify me with my wave (worn over my cap)
• goggles
• water bottle to rinse my feet off after the swim
• towel to dry off after the swim
• cycling shoes
• socks
• gloves
• sunglasses
• helmet (with my race number on the front)
• water bottle for my bike
• watch
• homemade granola bar

Phew!  My bike is all ready to go too – number attached to the frame, bike pump in place and spare inner tube in a bag under the seat:

This morning I went to the information session and Expo and afterwards I went for a quick easy ride along the river.  When I took my bike out of the car I realized my husband had put a note on my handlebars for me:

Aww, how sweet!  He had to fly to Seattle early this morning and won’t be able to cheer me on tomorrow but he’ll be there in spirit.

My alarm is set for 5am, my clothes are laid out and my water bottles are filled and chilling in the fridge – there’s nothing left to do tonight except get a good night’s sleep and dream of crossing the finish line tomorrow…

The Philly SheRox triathlon is less than 2 days away and I’m a bit jittery, mainly about the bike portion of the tri. I still don’t feel 100% confident on my new wheels but since there won’t be any traffic on the route the worst that can happen is I’ll fall off my bike (been there, done that) and scrape myself up.  Of course I could always hit a slippery spot on the course and wipeout in a spectacular crash taking down all the other riders around me.  But since I’ll pretty much be right at the back of the pack with the other newbies I don’t think that’s too likely!

To help control my jitters this evening I headed over to the pool in my planned tri outfit for one last dry run – a quick swim immediately followed by an easy bike ride.  I guess technically that’s more of a wet run than a dry run, but you get the picture.  Anyway, as soon as I was done swimming I hopped out of the water, whipped off my cap and goggles then ran outside to my car still wearing my swim gear (and soaking wet).  I yanked my bike out of the trunk, threw on my helmet & gloves, flung my flip flops into the backseat, dragged on my socks and shoes then jumped on my bike, remembering to lock the car remotely just as I was riding away.  The whole thing took only a few minutes and I noticed a few people looking on in amusement when I left a puddle of water behind me!  After a short ride I felt comfortable that I could easily transition without forgetting anything critical and rode back to my car to dry off and head home.  Mission accomplished.

One thing that I found surprisingly challenging over the past few months is deciding exactly what clothing to wear during the triathlon.  There is no privacy in the transition area (and public nudity is frowned upon by the race organizers), so whatever I wear for the swim will be what I wear for the rest of the race.  As a more – ahem – well-endowed gal, this means a sports bra underneath my swim gear.  And since I have no desire to ride my bike wearing just a swimsuit (bra or no bra, nobody needs to see that) I will swim in my bike shorts and shirt – which means anything made of cotton is completely out of the question unless I want to emerge from the water 10 pounds heavier than I started!  Also, experienced triathletes have told me that padded bike shorts absorb a lot of water during the swim – the feeling has been likened to a wet diaper.  So I think I’ll risk a bruised booty and wear unpadded shorts.

After a lot of trial and error I settled on this tankini top from Junonia, an Enell sports bra and black Danskin bike shorts.  The top is made of a nice stretchy swimsuit material and fits snugly to my ribs, then flares a bit to loosely cover my hips.  It is tres comfortable and also has the added bonus of not floating up over my head once I get in the water (like I said, this has been a trial and error process – mostly error).  The Enell is incredible, a feat of modern engineering.  If you are looking for complete lockdown during high impact activities, the Enell is without question the best choice.  Unfortunately that type of structure and strength is not sexy by any stretch of the imagination and is best covered up by cute workout clothes – fortunately my new tankini top fits the bill.

Finally, if the water temperature is below 84F, I’ll wear my new X-Terra Volt sleeveless wetsuit over my clothes.   This means I’ll have to struggle out of my wetsuit in addition to getting my bike gear on while still soaking wet.  But I have my fingers crossed that it will be cool enough because:

1. I love my wetsuit – it’s fun to wear and makes me feel like Catwoman!
2. It keeps me afloat without even having to tread water – a big advantage if I get tired during the swim.
3. It makes me swim faster
4. I feel like more of a triathlete with it on.
5. Did I mention it makes me feel like Catwoman?  Raaaawwrrr!

All of those advantages outweigh the extra time it will take to get the suit off before I hop on the bike.  And who am I kidding – if it takes me an extra 2 minutes in transition it’s not exactly going to cost me a podium finish!

After the swim I’ll put on my Balega Lady Enduro socks (OMG, these are the BEST socks I have ever worn and they hold up incredibly well in the washing machine), and my Forte cycling shoes that I got uber-cheap from Performance bike.  After the bike I’ll wear my Brooks Adrenaline GTS10 running shoes which I absolutely love.  Post-race I’ll be wearing a plush robe and slippers after a hot bath with a glass of champagne.  And maybe a pepperoni pizza.

Tomorrow I have to pickup my race packet and attend an information session.  There’s also a race expo where vendors will have lots of gear and goodies – I’ll definitely bring my wallet because I’m hoping to pick up some new gloves and maybe a new helmet.  After that I’m going to get my gear bag organized and packed and get a good night’s sleep.

CAN’T WAIT!

Yes, yes, I know – it’s not Wednesday.  It just took me a day to get up the courage to post this week’s weight.  I’m happy to report that my business travel is over and done for the summer (I hope) but the last few weeks have been stressful…and I think you know what’s coming next.  I allowed myself to fall right back into old habits and the result was as expected yesterday morning.  The scale read 241.  Yup, you read that right.  241.  Back in the 240′s .  Up 8 pounds from a few weeks ago.

Sigh.

I feel tired, headachy, and just generally foggy from eating processed food, sugar, fat and salt for a couple weeks.  Although I made an effort each day to eat some fresh fruit & veg, and kept up with my exercise no matter what, I still feel like crap.  The past couple weeks have really taught me just how damaging junk food is to the human body, and that a banana with my breakfast plus a few grapes for a snack just aren’t enough to overcome the negative effects of all that processed food.

So what’s next?  Get right back to it.  A lapse is just that – a break from routine, a time when I wasn’t making the best choices.  But a lapse isn’t permanent and there’s always tomorrow.  Feeling bad about my mistakes isn’t going to help my change my behavior – instead I’ll give myself a little pep talk to help generate some positive momentum.

The SheRox triathlon is in a few days and I’m pretty excited.  It has finally hit me that I’m a triathlete!  Not your typical triathlete, but perhaps that’s a good thing – I think I’m an example to all the women out there that think they can’t do it, especially the ones that are 50, 75, 100 pounds or more overweight.  No doubt I’ll be the heaviest woman at the starting line on Sunday (or at least close to it) and I’m kinda proud of that.  Not your average triathlete, but a triathlete just the same.  All 241 pounds of me!

Well after a long absence I weighed in again this morning.  Today’s weight was 236.  I can’t say I’m surprised, because although I’ve been fairly true to my exercise schedule, I have been sloppy with food:

• Mindless snacking during long meetings, or while watching TV at home
• Eating well past the point of fullness
• Eating a big lunch AND a big dinner – with a couple glasses of wine
• Eating in response to stress or boredom

I feel like I’ve been in a plateau forever – not the typical type where the scale won’t move despite watching your food and exercise – but more of a mental plateau.  Despite knowing how to change my habits and even managing to change some of them I seem to have stalled on my mental progress.

I will give myself props for not completely abandoning healthy habits over the past two months – the old Jill would have decided that traveling = no rules and just taken advantage of every opportunity to indulge.  I could have gained 10-15 pounds or more by now, instead of just 3.  Each day I strive to get in several servings of fruit & veg as well as some whole grains and healthy proteins.  Dinners have been a little heavy on the refined carbs, mostly because after a long day I tend to drift towards comfort foods.  I’m going to forgive myself for partially falling into old habits because I’ve also managed to hold onto many of the new ones.

This forgiveness doesn’t mean I’m going to stop working on improving myself, just that I’m going to stop beating myself up for not living up to my own expectations.  Clearly I need to spend more time exploring the reasons why I eat and continuing working on making permanent changes.  More on that soon!