Vanity and ultrarunning are not mutually exclusive. At least not to me: Thursday 13.

Dear Diary,

13. I truly, truly, truly believe that I may commit some sort of violent crime if I have to watch any more of thise Aflak commercials with the pidgeon in them.  Major medical, Booyyzzzzzz.

12. I have basically been off training since the San Antonio marathon and, oh, by the way, people love telling me about the guy that died during the half marathon. Non runners are almost gleeful about that.

 Which leads me to make the following observation: In any group of more than 20,000 people doing anything, one of them is likely to die. It's statistics  

11. I had my hair done last week. I used a groupon. Meh. Not so thrilled about the results. It's kind of brassy. Jim, oh Jim, (my usual hairdresser) I will never stray again, I promise. Not even for a groupon. i like the cut, though. I pretty much get the same cut now. I have a picture of the cut I want on my ipad, and I just flash it to my hairdresser(s) and say, "that's the cut."  Apparently it's an easy cut, because it turns out the same way each time.

10. Saturday, I got waxed.  Yes, one of those waxes.  It shouldn't be much for an ultrarunner but it was. I had a groupon.

The girl who did it was all chatty, and she would pause in her talking just long enough to rip...  She was all, so what do you do for a living? RRRRIPPP.  Oh, really? I had another customer this week that RRRRIPPP! does the same thing.  RRRRIPPP! hey, you're doin' great!

It was the most painfull one I've done, since I hadn't done it in three years.  But it was also the fastest.  

Waxing is so cruel. At first, you're all, hey, that warm wax feels good, this won't be so bad, I think, and what's that? A muslin strip? So now you'll HEYYYY!  OW! OW OW FUCKING OW!!!

RRRRIPPP


I asked her if she had seen 'that scene' in the movie, 40-year-old Virgin, and she said, Did you know they really did wax him?  

RRRRIPPP.

9. I started a new 50 mile training plan.  I tried to talk mini baboo into doing it.  He had lots of questions about trail running, but so far, is not interestested in running with his mom.  Go figure. 


I'm trying to figure out a way to upload my training plan, in case anyone is interested.  

8. Monday we had a nasty storm here, and I stayed inside all day and burned wood.  I called in lazy.  Actually, I called in snow. I can barely see here,  I said, and then writhed in the guilt of my lie. Luckily, I was saved when the major freeway that takes me to work was closed down.  See? It really was bad out. i relaxed, and read on the couch.

And waited. And then....about two in the morning, Sweet Baboo came home. He has been gone all month. I showed him his Christmas prresent: new components, many of them Apple, set up for streaming movies and listening to his favorite music, whenever he wants.  He was less interested on the gift and more interested in the giver. 

7. As part of my Year of Vanity, I bought a curing lamp and Gelish stuff to do my own gel nails. I'm hard on my nails, and these are fantastic.

6.  Also, the skin experiment hS been successful. i've managed to get rid of a lot of spots through a careful regimen. Yes, yes, I know, it's what's on the inside that counts, blah, blah.

I was asked recently about marathoning (probably because I keep a whole buttload of my medals hanging on the wall in my office) and I told them, truthfully, it all comes down to the math.  I have to eat less, or move more, and I LIKE TO EAT. Vanity trumps laziness, yet again.

5. Meanwhile, along the same "vanity trumps laziness" thread, in my desperate bid to be the world's biggest 'Johnnie come lately' I started doing the Power 90 workout this week. I like it. I can only do five pushups in a row. That's up from last year, when I could do three. Still, I like it. 

I parent my pets like I parent my kids: You
got yourself up there, you can get yourself
back down.  I don't care if you're blind.

4. The other thing I did this week was switch over to a mac. I've had it with Microsoft. I bought a mini mac and a wireless keyboard and trackpad, and it just uses my tv as a display. I also bought a CD/dvd superdrive, and spent considerable time ripping Baboo's favorite CDs to The Cloud.

3. Blind kitteh is doing well. She even climbs up into the Christmas tree. Here's a fun fact for you: blind kitties always climb back down backwards, that is, they descend butt first. She likes to chew on my feet while I'm putting on makeup. From the two teaspoons of kitteh formula she was taking in six weeks ago, she is now eating a full can of cat food a day, plus some dry. 

2. I will begin running on the treadmill during the week. I have always said: i don't mind running in the cold, or the dark, but bitter cold plus dark, well forget it.  And those Holiday edition Hershey's kisses aren't going to burn themselves off.  I'm still at 156, and my butt feels big.

But anyway.  I like running on the treadmill.  The key is to tip it up a little, so that there's some incline. That shortens your stride and makes it a better workout.  

1. My next year is going to be somewhat barren of travel, at least for a while. I have to complete an internship, which will last 8 months, and so that will keep me busy 6 days a week. I will graduate in August, so I'm planning on doing something special for the fall to celebrate.  I might try my hand at another 100K, or I might try to do an Ironman again.  I'm still in the planning stages.

... 

Less serious, more embarassing

Dear Diary,

On the heels of this morning's very serious entry comes this: I know I have a problem when I find myself sitting down with a bucket, a BUCKET, of chicken.  Yes.  Because, when my body is craving some sort of nutrient, like, say, protein, does it say to me, "you should get some isolated protein and mix it with some nonfat milk"?  It does NOT.  It says, "Get me fried chicken.  NOW!" and it says it in the deep throaty voice of a very fat woman.

And, UNortunately, it is a matter of about ten minutes to get from school/class to KFC, right down the street.

It's never a good idea for me to sit in the drive-through of ANY eatery when I am hungry.  I do not make wise decisions.  And I was.  hungry, I mean.  I had missed breakfast, and so ate my lunch for breakfast, and then ate my dinner for lunch, so that by dinner-time, I was pretty hungry.  So before I knew what was happening, I once again found myself in the drive-through at KFC, contemplationg the offerings of fried health up on the  menu, and before I could stop my mouth, the fat-lady-throaty-voice said, "I'll take the 6 piece chicken dinner, chicken only." Which was technically listed in the family section.  But lets not go there.

I knew I had made a mistake when my chicken was handed  through the window to me in a BUCKET.  Yes, bucket.  There's no denying that you have a binging problem when your dinner is in a bucket.  You are one step removed from a trough, at that point, and that can only mean one thing: MOO.  or oink.  or whatever.  To at insult to injury, the window guy asked me if I wanted plates, plural.  No, thanks.  I just wanted some napkins. He gave me enough napkins to take care of a school cafeteria, this entire experience reminding me that I was eating the food of several people.  Six, to be precise.

I arrived back to class about 30 minutes early, and immediately comments about the bucket began.
Is that for you or for the victims of the earthquake?
Hungry much?

Hey, did you bring enough for all of us, or just all of you?
Misty, has it ever occurred to you that this fried chicken thing is getting a little out of hand?

The last comment came from a fellow social work student who has known me for a couple years, and who asked it in his best therapeutic voice.  The others were joking.  He was not.

Meanwhile, across from me was another fellow student weeping, yes, weeping,  about some really shitty thing going on in her life, adding perspective to my relative shame.  There I sat, the queen glutton, with a bucket of food in front of me.

So I lied.  Well, of course I did. I took a piece out and invited others to dig in.  And they did, saving me from myself.  I spent $10 on a single piece of fried chicken and, hopefully, learned my lesson.

And that lesson would be: don't take a debit card with me on class nights.

...

Fat Thoughts, a paragraph at a time. Thursday 13.

Dear Diary...

13.  Friday morning, while I was waiting to check in at the airlines, I observed a woman who was at the ticket counter for a really long time this morning.  She easily took up two seats.  Easily.  Possible three.  She didn't even fit into the extra-large wheelchair that she was in; she kind of sat forward in it, on the edge, because she was so wide that she couldn't sit back in it.  I don't know if I've ever seen a wheelchair big enough to accommodate someone that large.


12. I felt sad for her.  Sad, and well, kind of fascinated.  In a "oh, my, there's a wreck, I shouldn't look, but..." kind of way.  What was the rest of her life like?  When I sat in my airplane seat, there was room on either side of me between the arm rests.  I was drinking a sugar-free red bull. And half of a 7-layer bar. This time last year, I was drinking a full carmel machiato with whipped cream and the entire bar.

11. Could she walk up stairs at all?  Could she walk?  How DID she get so big? It was nearly six years ago when I started this blog, and back then I wore a size 16 (it was tight, but I wore it).  On a day in January in 2005, I walked up a flight of stairs at work, and had to pause, at the top, and catch my breath.  I wasn't running, I wasn't carrying anything--I was just trying to get 200 pounds of me up a single flight of stairs, not much more stairs than people have in their homes.  It was at that moment that I realized how bad things had gotten.  I mean, I was never particularly fit, but this was a flight of stairs, for christ's sake. It was the impetus I needed to act.

10. Now I go up stairs with ease.  Sometimes I bound up the stairs at work, taking 2 or 3 at a time.  I make the trip up and down the stairs a minimum of six times per day. When escalators are out, I walk up the stairs, and sometimes, I walk up the escalators too, to speed up my journey.  What about the woman in the airport?  Could she even move from the wheelchair to the bed?  How did she bathe?  When I sit in the tub for a nice relaxing soak, it's just a regular tub.  And now there's room on either side of me in the tub.  I can even sit cross legged, sidewards, and do a sudoku puzzle.

And it occurs to me now that maybe there's another reason garden tubs have become so popular.

9. This past week I had a family in my office, and one of the members was similarly large and in a wheelchair, and was so large that this person was nearly unable to get through the wide, wheel-chair accessible door into my office.  I had a moment of panic that we would not be able to fit her in there, because I didn't have any idea where we would conduct the interview. And, I felt bad for her. I don't know what it's like to be that big. I don't know what there experience is.  I don't know how they got that big.  I just feel bad for them, as bad as I'd feel for someone with some other kind of handicap that results in being stared at.  I know it's not PC to think of something like weight as a handicap, but I figure that anything that makes it harder to live your life is, in some way, a handicap.

8.  That last time I saw the woman at the ticket counter she was sitting with her family at a different gate.  I don't know how they got her on the plane.  Just getting onto our small Southwest plane it was salient to me how cramped it was.  The turn into the isle was tight.  Yet, when I walked down them, though, there was room on either side of me to move past the people who weren't quite in their row yet.

7. A man sat next to me the last time we flew.  He quietly asked the flight attendant for a seatbelt extender.  I nudged Sweet Baboo, but only becuase he had recent asked me what one is.  The man sitting next to me was really large, and sitting next to the window as he was, he took up nearly 1/4 of my space, and it was lucky that I had the space to spare.  I felt bad for him, too.  When I sat in my airplane seat last Friday, I noticed that the seat belt had been adjusted all the way to the end, to accommodate someone who was large . 

6. There's no real purpose in this post. It's mostly just me thinking out loud.  I don't know what the experience is of someone that large is, just as I don't know what the experience is of someone who has never been large.  I'm aware that it might not occur to people who see me, and don't know me, that I was once much larger, and filled with self-loathing and anguish at how large I'd become. I'm aware that they may assume that I've always been this size, and hate me, or assume that my genetics keeps me this size. So I try to be extra nice.  

5. When I was nearly 200 pounds, When I woke up in the morning, my ankles and feet hurt.  I passed it off to osteoarthritis, but I can't help but notice that since losing thes last 25 pounds, my feet don't hurt in the morning any more. So I can't imagine how painful it would be to be even larger.  

4.  My mother was up to about 250, I think, and I don't know what size she got to because she started cutting the tags out of her clothes.  I know that she spent at least a decade and a half not able to shop regular sizes.  

3.  My sister, now, who was the athletic one in the family, is around 220 or more,  I think.  She was up to 200 when her daughter graduated from high school, and I crossed my fingers that she would now start taking time for herself and get healthy.  However, she's gained even more weight. She is easily as large as our mother was. 

2.  My only daughter has recently lost weight, she told me proudly, and is down to 230. She tells me she weighs 230 no matter whether she's gained or lost weight.  No matter what she's done, she always weighs 230.  And, I had an Aunt who was over 250 at one time, and by the time she died, she was walking with a cane because her knees and ankles were wearing out.  

1.  I've never been that big, but I've been big.  All I can do is feel bad for them, and hope that they find some way to be happy.  I can be thankful that I've dodged that bullet, the one that causes people to stare, and wonder, and pity.

...

On choices, and judging.

I went to El Paso  a couple weeks ago with Sweet Baboo, where he was officiating at a local sprint.  When you officiate out of town, they put you up in a hotel.  I had tried to sign up for the sprint, but it was already closed, so I hung around the hotel while he was at the event.

The hotel, a decent one, had a hot breakfast.  Being as I ran 13 miles the day before, and was due to run 26 miles the day after, I helped myself.  You bet I did. 

It made me wonder what people thought.  I know that if I was still 194 pounds, there would be that judging.  No wonder she's so big.  Look at how she's eating.  What did they think now? 

There was this article, recently, about a woman who lost 100 pounds.  I already knew what the world thought, because I grew up with a mother who had been morbidly obese most of my life.  She didn't start losing it until after her heart failure was diagnosed. 

I heard the things people said, when they didn't realize I was her daughter.  I saw how they looked at her.  I heard the things they said - even when they knew I was.  Is your mom having a baby?

And, I saw how they looked at me, in my thirties, when I gained over 60 pounds.  It wasn't an overt thing, their attitude.  But coming from a background of being a so-called "normal" weight, I noticed the difference.  Store clerks ignored me. People stopped moving aside when I walked through a crowd. People didn't meet my eyes. 

I would lean over counters at places like the dry cleaners as counter people attended to others who had come in after me.  "Excuse--excuse me.  Excuse me?  Can someone help me, please?"

I know a couple of people who are less than kind when they talk about those who are overweight.  They say this to me, even knowing my history.  When I point this out, they're quick to say, oh, but you're different, Misty.  You had complications.  or, But you're different.  You finally did something about it.  I also hear the comment, and maybe I've made it, too: If you're not willing to do something about it, you don't get to bitch about it.  


Really? Because I bitch about traffic, and yet there I am, contributing to it.  I bitch about lots of things I don't do anything about.  

My story was somewhat complicated, but in the end, I figured out what worked and what I was, and was not, willing to do.  It wasn't easy; it was hard.  But it was my choice.  I would never impose it on someone else. 

Those who know me best know about the visits to the doctor, thyroid medication adjustments, the various diets tried, the sadness, the dispair, the self-loathing, the antidepressants, the tearful mornings and "secret" binges. Dread Pirate could tell you about the hundred times I emailed her during the day.  OMG, I'm so big.  I'm so slow.  I hate looking in the mirror. 

So, this is my life now: counting points, and earning points by running.  I guess I'm willing to do it, because I've slowly gotten used to it, and it's meaningful to me in order to have the self that I want.  There will be many more times in the future when I deny myself things, or have a bite only after considering the alternatives, and whether or not I can burn those calories.    

There are some out there who shrug and say, "I'm not giving up food I love."  or, "I'm not running that far - that's crazy."  That's fine; it's their right to think and do that. I just hope I'm not judged as some sort of zeolot because it's not my choice.  But the comments I've heard, and read, say they do. Everyone seems to have an opinion on what others should, or should not do, about their weight.


What am I trying to say here.  Hmm.  

Fat, and weight, and loss, are just a small sampling of the choices people have to make, and the difficulties they face.  There are others.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't judge.  They're people.  Don't be so quick to judge, to make assumptions, about the choices others make.  You don't know them. 

Regardless of whether they are among the people who have made one choice or another, those choices are never as easy; they will never be as easy as you think they are.  Their journey  is not a simple as you imagine it to be.   Their lives are never as straightforward as you suspect.

Everyone has a story.  It's sometimes useful to know the story.  But more often than not, it's more useful to just know that there is a story, and to forgive others for not making the same choices you made.  

So.  Slight change of topic: where do I go from here?  I stepped on the scale early last week and got a 149.6 pound result.  The I started carb loading, and it crept up over 150 again, for now.  But still: there it is.  It's coming.  What will I call the Athena Diaries then? 

I guess the answer to that is, Athena wasn't the goddess of weight.  She was the goddess of war, and wisdom.  She represents strength, and victory to me.  I'll always be an Athena one way or another. 

Meanwhile, the journey continues.

...

This is why you're fat.

DP sent me this link. Hilarious. Enjoy.

PS: The vegetarian version of this sandwich is veggie sausage, cheese, carmelized onions, and eggs between thick slabs of french toast.
Go ahead. Ask me how I know.

Notes on things shaped like pyramids.

So I’m sitting in weekly meeting #2 of The Challenge. The speaker at the front of the room is conducting a question-and-answer session. The current topic is, as always, one of the sponsors who is mentioned in nearly every email and handout.

You don’t have to use them, the speaker assures the crowd. But they’re so much easier that going it alone! Gawd forbid you sit down with charts and all that complicated stuff, when you can just measure scoops of powder and get all you need from “whole food” powder shakes.

There is a display of the products set up, and little anecdotes: You know, Kyle and I are just so busy when we get home, too busy to cook – so I just mix up a little shake, and voila! Dinner is served. All I have to ask is: Peanut Butter, or Chocolate?”

They talk a lot about toxins built up in our bodies that simply must be cleansed.

They talk about this a lot, even though there is nothing to support it in the medical literature. If you cleanse out the toxins, they say, you'll feel so much better. You'll lose weight. It. Will. Change. Your. Life.

I look around the crowd, earnest, hopeful faces. I hope future happiness isn't hinging on “whole food” powders, as they write checks to a promise to change their lives.

So why am I doing this? Well, the structure, and the proceeds go to charity. It's a contest, also, where your before-and-after pictures and essay are judged, so I joined for fun and, well, "the challenge." I have gotten some very good information about diet and exercise from the book they gave me and the handouts that is separate from the constant push to sell the product.

My stuff is from Kroger or Costco, including the 6-8 glasses of Crystal Light I drink despite dire warnings that Splenda is just one atom away from pool treatment and will just make me so toxic that nobody, not even me, will be able to stand me and Baboo may immediately divorce me. Or something.

I look around at the couples who are talking. They are clearly interested in the pitch. Some are disappointed when they find out the prices - Introductory programs are $200, $300, and up. I can't afford it, their faces say. That hopeless look makes them an easy target for a good pitch man to move in for the kill:

We give you the opportunity to earn money immediately every time you personally enroll an Associate with us. We offer you a one-time Product Introduction Bonus of $10-$80 for each new Associate you personally enroll, when they order an optional Product Introduction Pak at time of sign-up (within 60 days for a President's Pak).

Cheap, simple changes are easier to maintain. My weekly resistance-training plan and eating tracking is on SparkPeople, using my body weight or resistance bands. Since I can't run right now; I'm power-walking several days a week during lunch, with a longer hike on weekends. I've divided up my eating into 6 small meals a day and increased my protein intake and eat the bulk of my calories in the first half of the day. When I gain weight, it's because I ate too much and moved too little. Simple.

I notice a pretty, but very large woman sitting alone. She looks in her checkbook and then back up to the stage, considering. She's going to do it, I think. She's going to spend a couple hundred or more on this stuff.
Oh, do I know that naive, desperate feeling.

They couldn't say it if it weren't true, could they, she might be thinking, it must work...I want so badly to be thinner. I know I would be happier if I were thinner...

She looks hopeful. I’m hopeful for her. I hopeful that she eventually figures out that to feel better about herself, she doesn’t need all those white plastic canisters up on stage.
Canisters that are, ironically, stacked in a pyramid.

...

Notes from the week.

Here's some graphs from LifeForm:

Training this week:
I power-walked between 2 and 3 miles Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday during my lunch hour.
Saturday, Sweet Baboo and I did a 5-1/2 mile hike in the foothills behind our new abode. Tomorrow, I'll be power-walking 18 miles down Tramway and back.
That's a total of about 32 miles this week. Not bad for someone who can't run right now.

I'm going to be working this next week on bringing down the fat some: especially the saturated fat.

So, I went to the first "THE CHALLENGE" meeting this past Thursday. They provided us in the beginning with a really nice log book and guidelines for eating, and each time we go to one of these meetings I get one or two pieces of truly useful information that I wouldn't have gotten had I not attended.

But. the rest of the time Sweet Baboo and I spend rolling our eyes and masking our skepticism. And sighing deeply. I have never met a people so invested in the cleanliness of their colons and so eager to sell me something called Isogenics. No, I don't want to hear your success story and how much you owe it all to Isogenics. Thanks.

Puh. Leeze.

They gave us a checklist of things that make you toxic. Apparently, my body is a Superfund site. What follows is a short list of things I do that make me toxic:

...wearing makeup, coloring my hair, eating splenda, drinking tap water, drinking bottled water, (??) eating non-organic food, living within 100 miles of non-organic agriculture, bathing in tap water, washing my clothes with regular store-bought detergent, wearing deodorant and/or antiperspirant, wearing lotions and/or sunscreens, swimming in a chlorinated pool, driving my car every day, never having had a colonic...

In the contest between me and Baboo, I won: I'm the most toxic, mostly due to my vanity, although, as men go, Baboo is awfully clean and he was a close second. We have to have our priorities, right? I've claimed mine. Apparently, in order to be non-toxic, I have to be plain, ugly, sunburned, dry-skin, dirty, and smelly. I'm far, far too vain to be non-toxic.

Well, I'll show 'em. I'm determined to finish THE CHALLENGE as a makeup-wearing, hair-dying, water drinking vegetarian who sucks down a LOT of Splenda and hasn't had one enemas or colonic.

And that's all I'm going to say on the matter of poo and all things related to poo, because I personally never cared much for it in conversation except perhaps among the closest of friends seeking some sort of advice. Even when my kids were little I didn't talk about it, and couldn't understand why anyone would. The end.

Oh. And I bought one of these. and also one of these. I can't wait until they get here.


...

What Title 9, Team Estrogen, and others need to know.

Thought for the day: Some endurance fashion that will just never look right on me. Accepting this is part of recovery.

1) Running skirts. RBR's post reminded me of my love/hate relationship with these. I own about eight of these little bastards. Oh, they are incredibly cute on the hanger, and on tiny little people like DP. I have some black ones, two pink ones, and a blue one. They are ADORABLE (high, squealy voice).
DP, goes on and on and on about how much she hearts her running skirts. And on.

But. I simply don't have the inner thigh clearance required to actually exercise in one of these. I am, hands down, an endomorph. Oh, I know what you're thinking, But, some have little shorts in them!

THOSE are the worst - the heart-breaking promise that is the little shorts. Within two minutes into the run they've rolled up as far as they can until they are, effectively becoming thongs, and then I spend the rest of the time pulling them back down again. I had one, just one experience with chaffed thighs when I wore one of these in a half marathon. Never again.

I'm not buying any more. I mean it. No, really. I do.

2) Low-rise pants and shorts or same with the waistband rolled down. Please. Do I even need to mention these? Unless I can get down to about 18% body fat, these will never, ever look right on me, and let's be honest: after carrying 8, 9, and 10-pound babies in the same 6 year period, muffin top takes on a whole other meaning separately from the Seinfeld reference.

3) My regular pants. How come when I gain weight, they get shorter? More importantly, do I want to know the answer to that question?

4) Hats/Beanies/Caps. I don't like what these do to my hair. I wear visors and bands instead. Yeah. I'm that vain.

5) Running Tights and capris in any color but black. I really don't at this point have the type of body that looks sleek in these clothes. Even in black I often wear extra jackets or shirts that I've discarded tied around my waste to cover up what I perceive to be my most glaring imperfections. I've tried bright red bike shorts (bad idea) and bright blue tights (even worse idea). Told you I was vain.

~~~~~~

Day 4 of "The Challenge" rambling: It's getting easier. I find that the hardest part is getting started; after a couple days of working out meals I get into a schedule that works for me, and then it's just been a challenge to get in all my eating.

Even though I'm a vegetarian, it's been surprisingly easy to get in lean protein sources. For example, first thing in the morning I blend together 2 cups of vanilla soy milk, 2 scoops of vanilla protein, 2 shots of sugar-free coffee flavoring syrup, and a double-shot of espresso, and voila: 45 grams of protein. That's about 1/3 of my daily requirement on this program.

I tried Wishbone light blue cheese dressing to replace the fatty crumbled cheese that I tend to like on my salads, and it's pretty good. I heart my evening salads, to which I add a small amount of dried cranberries and other dried fruits and nuts, and my light blue cheese dressing. It's a daily treat that I eat with relish.

I'm about 3-4 pounds down. I'm still having trouble getting in all the water, but was notified by one of the Challenge organizers that I can add crystal lite, so that will make it easier.

Sweet Baboo, meanwhile, gets a daily allotment of about a million calories. Damnit.
...

OMG, I weigh HOW MUCH??

My first thought when I saw this was, how did Roman find that picture of my ass?

Then I looked again and thought, oh wait, no, her hair's too long.

Last fall after I ran Palo Duro my tibia was clearly damaged. AND I was unemployed, for the first time in my life. Well, partially employed. In any case, I sat around for a month or two feeling sorry for myself and doing NOTHING except maybe a couple spin classes here an there. And eating. Oh, yes. Eating eating eating eating. Then I started my new job with work clothes that were too tight. The kind of tight where you say, Okay, I can wear this, but I can't eat.

Or drink....... Or take in too much of a breath.

Still, I ignored the obvious and started my job, which involves mostly, well, sitting on my butt. Then I joined the world of the people who say CAN'T a lot with respect to training and exercising and then oh, how the butt did spread.

My come-to-Jeebus moment was this past Saturday, when I was weighed and measured for the "before" statistics for The Challenge New Mexico, 2009. I will post these when all is said and done - that's my vow, but for now I'll tell some of the ugly truth:

• Size: 14. ish.
• Weight: 175.
• Body Fat: 36% or 41%,
  (depends on which impedance scale you follow)

That means...I'm carrying approximately between 63 and 71 pounds of fat. OF FAT. OF FAT.

I feel pretty ungainly, especially when--shudder--the day I reached for the pantyhose on the bottom rack. You might know the ones: They have a big Q on them. Like being Queenly is supposed to make me feel good in that respect.

No wonder my IT Band is pissed off. I'd be pissed off, too, if I was trained to carry a 155 pound load and suddenly was forced to carry 20 extra pounds!

I suspect that somewhere underneath all the, uh, fat that there are some muscles. Maybe I can just uncover them, and all will be forgiven. The purpose of the Challenge is to lose fat and build lean muscle. In order to build lean muscle I'm supposed to get something in the ballpark of 130 grams of protein a day, which I have never done, as well as resistance training, which I've generally, well, resisted. This is only a 10-week program, so I'm going to treat it like a jump start to having a leaner year.

Changes I have made so far this week:

1. Switched from putting crumbled blue cheese on my salad and switched to fat-free blue cheese dressing. Savings: 55 calories and 8 grams of fat.
2. eating 1 serving of oatmeal instead of 2. Savings: 170 calories.
3. I power-walked 5K for lunch instead of sitting. My meals I eat at my desk. Burned: about 300 calories.
4. No more mayonnaise, or fried potato chips. :-( b ye bye, my one true love...
5. Switched from candy bars to a protein bar. Savings: 100 calories, and added 20 grams of protein to my diet.
6. Eating 6 small meals instead of 3 big ones. First meal is a protein shake with sugar-free flavorings and espresso. Yummm.
7. No carbs allowed after 5 pm. So, most of my workouts will be before noon on weekends, and during my lunch hour at work.
8. Lots of fat-free dairy. Like, fat-free cottage cheese, fat-free yogurt, fat-free cheddar, fat-free dressings.
9. Egg beaters instead of eggs. Savings: per serving, 28 grams of fat (I think) and 250 calories.

I plan to throw in enough extra calories and carbs to cover my weekly long runs, but only enough to cover them.

Caution. This is a 10-week program. I don't think I could do this for much longer than that. It's pretty restrictive, and especially for endurance sports you generally need more carbs than this.

So far, I'm really full from all the water and peeing constantly. You're welcome for that visual. We'll see how that goes. I'm using SparkPeople to track my eating, along with LifeForm. Spark people is easy to reach anywhere that you have an internet connection. LifeForm can be used without the internet connection on my laptop, plus it makes cool graphs. Which I'll post weekly.

...

Friday Fat Thoughts.

Weight: 168.
Mood: Sassy.
Music: Britney Spears, Circus, which has not been released yet. C'mon. Who do you think you're talkin' to? I'm the GeekGirl.

I'm leavin' on a jet plane...right after work, to join Sweet Baboo in Arizona. My plans for this weekend are simple: 1) Don't do an Ironman 2) Watch other people do an Ironman 3) Volunteer at IMAZ 4) Perhaps meet other bloggers.

On a slightly related note, I've been reading a research report on BMI. It all started when I was printing off charts to stick all over my desk area. I'm supposed to be searching medical records for people who meet a certain criteria to recruit them for a study, and one of the criteria is related to their BMI. I looked at this chart. THERE'S some good newss: According to this chart, I'm overweight with a BMI of 27.

Oh, LIKE I NEEDED TO READ THAT. Like I don't have enough issues with body stuff anyway that I struggle with, one day really liking myself and one day hating myself, one day starving myself and another day eating two lean cuisine entrees at lunch instead of one and then going and getting desert AND a candy bar mocha latte and yes, I know most us women, we do it to ourselves but I still blame men. All I've been feeling fat lately because I need new pants. I'm sitting a lot now and pants that you sit in require a certain amount of shall we say, "relaxed" fabric content.

But seriously, I can't be that unhealthy, right? I mean, how many pre-obese girls can run up a mountain (and crawl back down, but that's besides the point) or run 31 miles before sundown? I wear a 10/12 depending on the time of the year and how many times I've eaten Chinese food that month. Certainly, I'm bigger and slower than the tiny bird people I train with and hang out with but still, I hold my own.

So I looked, and I found this study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise [39(3):403-409]. Thought I'd share. What they did was look at BMI according to a height/weight chart, and then compared with skin fold test and the test where they dangle you in water, to see if the BMI chart was accurate in predicting fatness. The following was observed:

1) Athletes whose BMI classified them as overweight on the chart (over 25 bmi) were incorrectly classified as overweight 77% of the time (female) and 87% of the time (males).

2) Non-athletes, meanwhile, were incorrectly classified around 44% of the time for both groups.

Then I discovered Whitney Thompson. She apparently won "America's Next Top Model" which I've never seen. She's a size US12, or 10, or 14, depending on who you read. She's tall, but just look at those full thighs and healthy cheeks.

So there ya go.

Food for thought.

Think I'll go get a latte now.

...

Aggggghhhhhh!

Macaroni and cheese is NINE POINTS?

NINE POINTS?

I'm alloted 22 points per day, and 1 cup of macaroni and cheese is 41% of that?

Just kill me now.

In other [good] news, I seem to have lost a couple pounds already. The last time I was on weight watchers I lost about 3 to 5 pounds a week for 2 months. Then I stopped doing weight watchers and never lost another pound. That was in early 2005.

I feel good, not weak or hungry. But oh, my mac and cheese! how I'll miss you! Perhaps this is how I"ll spend some of my "activity points".

Meanwhile, Sweet Baboo is getting all hunky and stuff. The other day I said, "nice package" to him. He was all embarassed; it was cute. But when he's talking to me at home and getting dressed at the same time, I'm finding it difficult to focus on what he's saying.

...

Okay, let's see if this works.

So way back in August after Ironman Louisville, Sweet Baboo shared with me that he would really, really like to lose about 20 pounds before doing the Silverman. I did some online research (aka, I Googled the hell out of everything and used words like, "weight loss" and "review" and "opinions" and such) and finally signed him up for WeightWatchers Online, for men.

I chose WeightWatchers because we've used it before, with great success. You get so many points per day. You begin to be judicious in your choices, e.g., "I have 7 points left, do I want to blow it on this tiny piece of cake or maybe save it for something else?"

Meanwhile, at any given time your daily points are calculated based on the goal of losing 10% of your current weight. Once you reach each 10% goal, your points are recalculated and you are allowed a bit fewer if you want to continue to lose weight.

Anyway, I chose the online thing for two reasons; first, it takes into account the mind-blowing idea that, apparently men eat differently from women. (Duh. Just last month I was startled to find out that Sweet Baboo loves, wants to marry hamburger helper. Aroo? yeah. So does Mini baboo. We make it with Morning Star Meal Starters. Sweet Baboo and Mini Baboo clean the pot out and seem very satisfied. I usually have something else, too much starch for me. )

But anyway.

Second, Sweet Baboo is in charge of his own destiny, as it were, and doesn't have to depend on me to tell her what he's eaten and how many points it is, etc. He just enters in his information. And, clearly, it's working.

So, today, I decided to join WeightWatchers Online. It's how I lost the first 30 pounds, way back in 2005. Then I went off it and never lost another pound.

For now, my daily points are 22, but I can "bank" extra points by exercising, (today's 190-minute jog earned me a bunch but I spent some of that on gels - 2 points each - and a power bar - 2 points) .

PLUS, I get 35 "flex' points at the end of each week that I can use or a little each day or blow all at once or not use at all.

Thus, I have a built-in binge.

I love the thrill of being allowed to binge.

I would like to have a bit less to haul up and down the hills of Idaho in June. The current target is 2 pounds a week. With careful choices and a lot of activity, it should be doable even while training.

...

The thin I always wanted to be.

I always think deeply about thing on my long runs - I figure things out that have been bothering me. It's weird. It's like I have all this solitude and it affords me the quiet time that I need to mull over ideas that daily distractions would otherwise render impossible. It's especially true when I run along the bosque trail - out in nature, suddenly things seem clearer.

When I started this whole thing 3 years ago it was with one idea in mind: I wanted to be thin. More specifically, I wanted to be willowy. I wanted to be thin and gangly and long limbed and look super fit. The way athletes are "supposed" to look.

So I had this testing done recently and it says that I'm very, very fit, but only in a good week can I squeeze into a size 10. Most of the time, I'm a twelve. Not willowy. Not thin. But very fit.

There are only two times as an adult when I was "thin": The first was when I was 18. My high school sweetheart had committed suicide and I was an emotional wreck. At such times of despair and grief I lose my appetite, and I stopped eating. I was scheduled to have some surgery done, but at the pre-surgery meeting the doctor told my mother if I lost just one more pound before the surgery, he wasn't doing it. I weighed 118 pounds, about 50 pounds less than I weigh now.
Not healthy. Not fit. Not happy. But thin.

The other time was when I was around 35. I'd lost a lot of weight by limiting my eating and hiking a few miles each day. Then I stopped exercising, but also severely restricted my eating. I weighed 130 pounds, 35 pounds less than I weigh now. A picture of myself at that weight does not show a healthy woman. I was pretty happy about fitting into a size 8, though. But I was weak. I couldn't run; I could barely hike. I had no muscle tone.
I was happy. I was thin. But not fit.

It's almost like happiness takes up some palpable room in my body alongside the muscle, and the only way I can be that thin is to sacrifice fitness or happiness.

So, I was running along the bosque today and I suddenly heard a voice inside my head - I mean, I'm not psychotic or anything - but this thought popped into my head: Can I accept the hard work it takes to be healthy and fit, even if it means I will never look exactly the way I want to look?

Can I be satisfied to know that I'm fit and healthy, even if I look "ordinary" on the outside, I don't embody my idea of what an athlete should look like?

Can that be enough?

You know, whenever I run 15 or 20 or 25 miles I look into the mirror afterwards and always suprised to see a soft, 40-year old body. I'm stocky, with a little round belly that floats in the bathtub and full thighs that touch well along their length. No obvious musculature.
At those times I wonder, when will I start looking like an athlete?

Today I was thinking about that that again: I wished I looked like an athlete.

As I thought that I tripped over a root and looked down at the ground, catching myself, and that's when I caught sight of my shadow.

Oh. I get it now.

That's me down there.

And I'm an athlete.

So, I guess, I'm what an athlete looks like, at least this athlete.

And yes, that's enough.

...

Off season goals 2007-2008

In 2005 I decided to lose some weight because I was depressed and disgusted at how parts of me would flap and move when I ran down the stairs (Yeah. I know. Ew.)

I don't know what parts of me were doing running up the stairs because at the time I could barely walk up the stairs.

So now I'm ready for the next level, and I think it's for the right reasons. Well, first off, I'm just freaked out by the way my belly fat floats in the water. (You're welcome for that visual). I magically managed to put on nearly 15 pounds during Ironman training and oh, aren't you nice to say that it must be muscle? but unless I gained all that muscle in my ass and stomach and thighs, I don't think so.

Secondly, I think changing my bodyfat percentage and lightening up a bit would make an enormous difference in the comfort with which I experience running and cycling since, um, that's a lot of stuff to haul up and down hills, ya know?

I'm no longer vegan. I've made that statement before, I believe in honesty concerning such things, because I am personally annoyed by people who say they are vegan "except sometimes I eat fish"

or a vegetarian who "sometimes eats chicken"

After 7 years as a vegan, I got to looking at our diet and quite frankly, it was very high on refined carbs and very low on protein. Our diet was fine for day-to-day being a human being, but no so much for endurance athletics. So we tried Soy protein, which was making things, um, difficult in the GeekGirl/Baboo realm, as well. Finally, traveling was extremely difficult.

Even more pressing was the presense of Mini-baboo, who is 5'10", 180 lbs and still growing AND in cross country AND weight training.

It was clear that some allowances had to be made.
I pride myself on never stubbornly just staying with something that isn't working just for the principle of the thing, so, we brought eggs and whey protein back into our diet. I found "cage free" eggs which makes me feel better--HEY, DON'T MAKE FUN OF MY LOW THREASHOLD OF GUILT, MAN--and then I taught Mini-baboo how to make scrambled eggs in the microwave with soymilk.

I'm curious as to how the extra protein and, what is it, omega whatsits will affect his mental focus and cognition, if at all. I'll keep you posted.

As for me, I'm using egg whites. Today I started my day with a quick run (3.8 miles) followed by a 2-egg white omelet and cereal bar.

In all, I'm aiming for a diet that is 65 percent carbohydrate, 20 percent fat, and 15 percent protein, one of the recommended divisions for endurance athletes.

So here's today's graph. For a first day, it's not bad. I'm kinda close, I think...

It's my impuse control that's a killer. I've been stopping by and getting chips and candy and gatorade and everything, and I don't need them.

I need to drink more water is what I need to do. I've made this commitment before and always failed, usually getting 2-3 glasses a day.

However, this time I seem to be succeeding. Yesterday, for instance, I forgot my water bottle and could really feel the difference until someone took pity on me and gave me a bottle of water from the fridge in the office I share.

So anyway here it is. My trying to be a healthy eater instead of a vegan junk food junkie. I'm still not eating meat. Ew. But I'm coming back toward a middle path that I think is more doable.

If I replace some fat with muscle in the process, great. I'd rather have tissue that works for me instead of just, uh, floating in the water.

If not, well, there's always Photoshop.

Meanwhile, I'm going to be run-focused and do some strength training in the off season. I'm a noodle. I need some power.

Thanks for letting me think out loud.

...

On not being a stick insect.

There are some signs that something unusual happened this past weekend: my back is a little stiff, I have a little blister on one toe that is healing.

My weight soared to 171 pounds on Tuesday as my body retained extra water in relatiation for Sunday's mistreatement.

But, on Wednsday, peeing. All day. Clear water. All the water is leaving.

My shins stopped aching. I did a light jog/walk around the track yesterday, and some gentle running drills.

"Hey, Mrs. P, how long are you going to wear your medal?"
" You got a problem with my medal?"

"No, m'am."

One of the other teachers asked me how my weekend went. "Didn't you have, like, a marathon or something" and I said, "Yeah, something like that."

"So how did you do?"

I said that I did do a marathon, but I had to do some other stuff before I was allowed to start it." When you put it like that, you get instant attention. Allowed to do a marathon? What kind of "stuff"? In a river? How many miles? OH, MY, GAWD. IN ONE DAY??

And that's when it hit me; I can't joke about being lazy with anyone other than triathletes any more. I've been kicked out of the lazy club.

I'd already been kicked out of the diet club. You know the one: everyone sits around, eating Lean Cuisine, swapping information on the latest internet diet but refusing to exercise other than a bi-monthly salsa class, and then you say, brightly, "I've had a lot of success with jogging and biking!" And then the excuses ensue.

• "I'm 'different'"
• "I can't run."
• "I don't have time to exercise."
• "I have bad knees."

and my favorite:

• "I have to wait until I've lost weight before I start exercising."

So, what does all this Ironman stuff mean to me. Hmmmm.

I When I was in LooAville I was laying awake the night before mulling over the possibility of success, or failure, and what they'd mean to me. I imagined writing two notes to myself.

One would say, Open this if you made it to the finish line.

and the other one would say, Open this if you didn't make it to the finish line.

The first one would say, "Will you finally accept and love yourself as you are?"

The other one would say, "Will you finally accept and love yourself as you are?"

So, what's sinking in? That I'm good enough. Not in a Stuart Smalley sort of way. But in a healthy body sort of way. When I started this part of me was hoping I would wind up being thin and, well, willowy, something I used to dream about being called.

As in, "That's her over there. See her? She's the willowy blonde on the left." (I'm not really blonde, but let's not go there...)

But no more. Barbie may be pretty, but I bet she can't do an Ironman.

So, I'm not tiny. I'm not petite, with a tiny ring in my tiny belly button on my tiny belly. I'm not shivering pre-race in my tiny size S or XS triathlon suits, trying to find a size 48 bike frame. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

So, I'm not twenty. I don't have a twenty-something body.

So, I'm not sub-140 pounds. My weight hasn't changed much in the past two years. I'm a few pounds on either side of 160.

So, I'm stocky. I'm broud-shouldered and wide-hipped and I'm definitely NOT aero. But my body is healthy. My doctor is thrilled with the changes I've made. He doesn't say a word about my weight, despite the fact that I'm officially overweight at 5'6". My resting heartrate has dropped nearly 20 beats.

I no longer say things like, "When I get skinny, I'm gonna...." or, "I'll do that when I get thin again."

I refuse to fit myself into someone else's idea of womanhood when I shop. I will not wish that I was skinnier so I can all the cutest triathlon clothes, or buy clothes that are too small hoping I'll lose enough weight to fit into them.

I'm healthy, dammit. If someone wants my business, they're going to have to cater to me. Kiss my zaftig ass, and don't you dare call it extra large.

I'm am not, as Bridget Jones says, "an American stick insect."

I may never even get to see all the new muscles I've been developing.

But now I know without a doubt that they're there.

So that's where I am right now.

...