Tuesday Tidbit: This post is more than a tidbit

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those 

who are more fortunate than we are, 

we should compare it with the lot 

of the great majority of our fellow men. 

It then appears that we are among 

the privileged.

~Hellen Keller

I have had a pretty amazing weekend. It all started Thursday night when Super Hubby and I went to the Trampled by Turtles concert at the Fillmore in SF. We really love this bluegrass band and try to see them every time they are in California. The concert is one in a series of dates we have had over the last three months. Trying to make our couples time more date like has been fun. We have done mini golf, movies, bowling and now a concert. Oh to be young again. We still keep our usual dinners and lunches out together, but the activity based stuff is really fun!

Friday Super Hubs had to work while I had the day off. I had a few plans move around, but I basically landed on getting Duder a big boy full size bed, having breakfast with a very cool friend, lunch with the Hubs before he set out for his weekend fishing trip then the kids and I had dinner with his extended family including the New Jersey contingent who is visiting this week. It was a full Friday, but full of love, friendship, fun and gratitude. The Bug was less than thrilled with her new toddler sized bed and had more fun hanging with her Big Bro in his bed.

You thought Friday was full didn't you, well Saturday we knocked out soccer pictures, a couple hours with the New Jersey crowd, a soccer game where my Duder scored a goal from across the field, a birthday party at the science museum and dinner out with my BFF. Did I mention Duder scored a goal? So he is playing defense and goes to kick the ball to clear it and it is one hell of a kick and the ball rolls into the goal on the other side of the court. It is indoor soccer played on basketball courts at the local high school. He almost did it a second time, but the other team got to it.

Sunday, oh this was a major recovery day. We reluctantly got out of bed and met some friends at the gym for a workout date, stopped at Trader Joe's made a quick lunch and started some epic naps. The Bug and I slept about 2.5 hours and Duder went down for 45 minutes and after a mean look for waking me up, he laid down in my bed and promptly went back to sleep. He ended up sleeping an additional 3 hour nap. He obviously needed it.

I am one lucky girl, I got to go trail running. I really can't tell you how wonderfully excited I was about it. It is with a couple girls I ran with a couple years ago. One of them kept running and is now an ultra trail runner, the other finished her marathon and took time off and I am obviously getting back into it again. I was a little nervous to be using a non-family babysitter for the first time, but my gal pal swears by her and for good reason, she was great! Did I mention I got a new headband? Yup, it is pretty and was almost free. Free in that I really didn't spend money on it, but I did spend enough money at the shoe store to earn points to "buy" it.

Why I Kick A$$: While I may not get to spend frequent time with my friends, I have an amazing group of women I am proud to have in my life. When I judge myself or compare myself to others, these friends really add the perspective I need to ease my worry wort self.

Thankful Three:

1. For being busy with family and friends when Super Hubby is away, makes the absence more palatable.
2. For friends and family who share experience so I can learn from them, awesome-awesome people.
3. For fitness, I am not the skinniest, fittest person ever, but damn it, I have been much happier and more balanced having fitness back in my life.

Monday Motivation: Getting Dunked

I keep trying to lose weight... 

but it keeps finding me!  

~Author Unknown

So last Saturday I had a great post planned where I would share with you the results of my hydrostatic body fat testing. A local crossfit had a mobile unit coming out and a good friend of my mine signed us up, I was looking forward to the 01-05-13 date for a couple weeks. We went and the parking lot was empty. My first thought was we were at the wrong place, her first thought, we were scammed LOL Actually, a pipe had burst late the night before and we didn't get notification. Our make up session was Friday 01-11-13 and I couldn't be more elated with the results.

The Beginning
In fall/winter of 2011 I started to gain a few pounds... like 5. Not a big deal. I probably over reacted and started watching what I ate along with picking up my running again. Suddenly my 5 was 10 and I couldn't get the scale to budge! Next steps: primary care, off the 1 medication I was taking, then referral to an endocrinologist in May 2012 and nothing. Blood work, fine. My eating, was healthy including a 6 week stint of mostly plant based diet and zero fried foods. I was eating 1200 calories and exercising. When that didn't work, I gave up, ate what I wanted and initially lost a few pounds so I started watching what I ate again and gained another 5lbs. Dang it! So I stopped exercising and didn't watch what I ate.

The Middle
I went to an RD in the late summer time and she informed me that I was way under eating and used a simple method of my body weight divided by 2.2 to find my weight in kilos and multiplied that by 20 to find my target calories for weightloss. I was also informed that it was unnecessary, unless training super hard, to replace my calories for regular workouts. I could just structure my meals so that I ate near enough my workouts or had snacks around then to stave off hunger. It worked for a few weeks, I lost 3 pounds and my goal conservatively was about 1 lb. a week. Then the weight started to come back on and I was too frustrated to play. So we are approaching the 1-year mark and I decided to workout again. I am going on almost a month of working out and eating 1700 calories. The first few days I lost 1-3 lbs. and then I was back up another 5 or more. I even got to a point where I worked out 12 out of 15 consecutive days. I have been doing lots of strength training and have been doing more and more cardio over the last two weeks.  In a year I have put on 15 pounds!

The Present
Am I losing weight? No. Does weight loss take longer than a month? Yes. I get it, but I feel hungry all the time, am watching what I eat and exercising, I should be seeing something. So fast forward to Friday. My body fat testing didn't yield shocking results. I had had quality caliper testing done in the late summer-fall and the results are fairly close. I am 24.3% fat. I need to lose 5.8 lbs to lower that percentage to 22% and any muscle gain changes the results dramatically. The ultimate goal is 20% or less. What was shocking news was to have my fat and lean body mass factored in to my RMR. When I run my RMR online based on height, weight, age and activity level it is usually in the high 1500's almost 1600. So I was worried a little with 1700 being higher than that, but the RD knows better than a computer generated generic number. With more information, comes a stronger answer. My new, old, whatever, my current RMR result is 1958 calories. Yes, to lay in bed all day and breathe is 1958. If I roll out of bed and walk to the bathroom, I am already creating a calorie deficit! Should I be replacing my workout calories? YES! So at 1700 calories I was already 258 under plus whatever I burned walking around doing my regular routine, let alone exercising. My body for a year has been in a perpetual state of starvation.

The Reason Why and What's Next
So why did this all happen late fall 2011? I stopped running. I took time off gained weight and when I went back to it, over compensated by restricting my calories. I can run and pretty much eat whatever I want. All I had to do was one or the other, but both was too much on my body, apparently. So I will be slowly upping my caloric intake 2-3 days at a time so my body doesn't hold on to everything thinking I will go back into a period of starvation. I am at 1800 and am eating more of my workout calories. On Wednesday I'll go to 1850, next Sunday 1900 and by 01-23-13 I'll be at 1958 and hopefully be consuming closer to all my workout calories. I know it'll take time for my body to adjust so I am hoping by the end of February I start to see a reduction. Once I stabilize, I'll start a normal weigh loss program, if necessary. You know, the 500 calorie a day deficit blah, blah, blah.

Why I Kick A$$: Because after only 2 days of upping my calories the scale ballooned 5lbs and it didn't bother me. I'll keep weighing in because at some point the numbers will be validating again, I just have to be patient in the mean time.

Thankful Three:

1. For date night with my girlfriend
2. For date night with Super Hubby
3. For a wonderful dinner

Tuesday Tidbit: Super Original

res·o·lu·tion  

/ˌrezəˈlo͞oSHən/

Noun A firm decision to do or not to do something. A formal expression of opinion or intention agreed on by a legislative body, committee, or other formal meeting, typically after taking...

Synonyms decision - determination - resolve - solution

Ok, so not exactly super original, yes I'll be talking about resolutions like most people in blogland. LOL ok, maybe not as I have already read some posts about how some prefer not to call them resolutions. I have heard To-Do-List, Goals, Challenges whatever, January 1 starts a new year and a natural jumping off point for things to do, change, accomplish etc. This is a concept that super hubby does not engage in, there is not planning ahead, if he wants to do things, he'll start the moment he decides he wants to do something and only tackles things he plans to truly complete. I wish I had his resolve to only spend energy on things I'll actually do and his sense of freedom from the rest of the worlds schedule. So here is our families' New Year's Whatever List:

The Bug: She wants to have a snowflake garden this year
Duder: He wants to go to the snow and learn how to make a snowman
Super Hubby: For a guy who doesn't set goals, he is planning to do a pretty cool activity this year, Tough Mudder! Yup, my husband who hates running and thought the Merrill Down and Dirty 5K was kinda challenging has just decided he'd do tough mudder with his buddies. He'll finish, have fun and likely do it all without doing a shred of training. I plan to beg and plead until race day for him to work out with me and run with me in preparation for his event, but really, just so we can hang out doing something I like to do.

Me: Geez where do I start? I have lofty ideas, hence the "Ambitious" part of my blog title. I am working on reigning it in. I am also a slacker so even if I have a narrowed list of things, I have a difficult time following through timely on my goals. I start strong and sputter, until I have only a vague memory of what I even started out to do. So with all this in mind, here is my list, my living list of things I'd like to focus on this year.

1. Save more money, Super Hubby is going to find a good mutual for me.
2. Take my family to Disneyland, shooting for this summer.
3. Get leaner, I was going to say fit, I was going to say skinny, but I am already fit and I will never be "skinny." Generally leaner would mean losing about 10-15 lbs of fat, but we'll see how this goal changes after I get my Hydrostatic Body Fat testing and RMR results Saturday. I like how I look and feel in a 10 so that is the tangible goal right now because "weight" and the F*&^ing scale are not really anything I am happy about. The fluctuations are not making sense to me, but I feel good so I am just trying to focus on that.
4. Run. I ran last year, but let my frustrations with my weight struggles derail me in late spring and never picked myself back up. On the schedule, a 10K in January, a half marathon in March and I am still looking for something for other months in the year. I would like running 2-3 days a week to become more routine for me without losing my strength training.
5. Do things that help me be a happier person, things that are about me. Selfish, selfish me totally guilt free. Blog. Read. Spend time with friends, etc. I need to schedule me time. I find myself being jealous of the folks who have scheduled events like book clubs or bunco or take long weekend trips like my hubby takes with his fishing buddy etc. I just need to decide what would make me happy, throw it on the calendar and commit to it.

So not a ton of earth shatteringly fantastic ideas here, but I think these 5 things are manageable. How will I track? Eh, I don't want the tracking to be super serious, but I have been using MyFitnessPal for food and exercise tracking. I have tried dailymile in previous years, but I could hardly remember to log my miles. I will post my "ME" activities on the calendar and I will count races as me time. I am trying to pace myself here and not over commit only to beat myself up later for failing.

Why I Kick A$$: I started my list already....just gotta keep going.
Thankful Three:

1. For tamales, have I posted this before?
2. For cupcakes, damn it... this is not helping my cause.
3. For having things to look forward to.