Not better. Just different.

The weekend took a toll on my body.

Friday evening: Husband and I went mountain biking. I only ran into one tree on Friday night, which is good (although resulted in a good deal of bruising on my left leg) but it was very very muddy. At one point, my tire slipped going down a hill and sort of fell off my bike. Half way. Kind of. Either way, I scratched my leg on something... Not a big deal. Until... I got back on my bike and after a couple of minutes I started to feel like bugs were biting me. I swatted - essentially at nothing - but it kept getting worse, like more and more bugs were biting me. After a minute, the feeling got so intense that I had to get off of my bike and I was scratching all over. It was as if bugs were biting me and some one was sticking needles all over my body. There were hardly any bugs out (even though we were in the woods) and there certainly was no one with needles. Then I looked down and where I had previously scratched my leg had swelled up an blistered from just below the medial aspect of my knee, up over to my medial thigh. Clearly, I was having some kind of allergic reaction. I didn't know what to do, so I tried pouring cold water from my water bottle on my legs and arms. That seemed to help, but we didn't have much water and I was starting to panic. The biting/needle feeling was only intensifying. So, Husband and I booked it out of the woods, back down the hill and to the car. He quickly got our bikes loaded up and drove me home where, not knowing what exactly to do, I turned the water in the shower on full blast cold and jumped in. It actually helped. It took probably about 20 minutes of standing in the shower for the feeling to subside enough for me to want to get out, but blistering/swelling in my leg went down and the biting feeling was down to a very mild itch that I could mostly ignore. Once I got out of the shower, the swelling started up a little bit in my leg, but I iced it for a bit and that kept it at bay. No idea what that was, but I'm seriously hoping it never happens again. 

Saturday morning: There was an annual seven mile race near where I live and I have never run it because it's always about 90-100 degrees in the morning this time of the year and I get heat exhaustion too easily, but I have wanted to run it ever since I moved to this area. Well, we have been having some strangely cold weather lately (which is AWESOME!) and the highs have only been in about the 70s, so a couple of nights before, I signed up to run the race. It turned out to be 56 degrees out that morning so it was actually pretty chilly and the race ended up being SO fun. People come from all over the world to run this race. Last year there was 18,000 people. This year there was only about 11,000 but it was definitely still a sea of people. Here are a couple of photos. The first is of people waiting to start the race. The second is the large hill that the race begins and ends on. The whole course is just a series of steep hills, which I love :)

I had fun with it too. I could have finished faster than I did. Took me a little over an hour. But I also stopped for a minute at a friend's house. He lives on the road the course takes so he throws a party every year for the race, so I stopped the for a minute. I also drank some beer while running. The spectators have fun with the race and they will set up things like weight-lifting challenges and stuff on the side of the course for the runners who are just running for fun. Many people offer free beer to the runners so I took a beer and drank that while I was running. Did it make my stomach hurt a little and slow my time a bit? Yes. Was it more fun for me and the spectators to see people drinking while running? You betcha. I didn't care about my time, so I had fun with it. 

The only down-side to Saturday was that I got a migraine in the afternoon which put a bit of a damper on the rest of the day. But the race was awesome. 

Sunday: My muscles were still pretty sore from running the day before (I don't live very close to hills so I don't run them very often) but Husband wanted to go mountain biking again. We went to a different location than on Friday and I wore long pants, just in case of another scratch from whatever that was. The ride was a good time for about the first hour or two, but then the fatigue from the cumulative 48 hours was catching up to me and I was practically walking my bike out of the woods that day. My whole body was shaking as I tried to keep pedaling/bracing/balancing/etc. over the last few obstacles and hills. I hit a couple of trees throughout the ride, but eventually we made it back to the car and headed home. I can't remember a time in my life I felt so physically exhausted. 

But exercise is my favorite, so I kept with it. I knew this week was going to be busy and I wouldn't have much time for it so I just went all out. 

In answer to Pegasus' question, I am currently in chiropractic school. Since most people don't know how much work is involved in becoming a chiropractor, I often send people this link which is a general breakdown of a chiropractic education vs a med school education. I don't intend it to be braggy like "oh, the chiropractors know soooo much more than MD's" because it's hard to compare the two. They are two healthcare professions which take a different approach to patient management so the education differs in some respects. I actually started chiropractic school around the same time as my cousin started med school and from communicating with her, have found the two to be more similar than dissimilar. But on here, I often talk of the stresses of being a doctor soon and many people think that, as a chiropractor, I am elevating myself beyond my knowledge or abilities, which is not the case. So that is the long answer to your question, what I am studying. 

Also, I have a Bachelor's degree in Neuroscience. In case you were interested. 

I'm a big nerd. 

And I like what I do. I often get exhausted. The days are long but I like the challenge so it's worth it. 

Speaking of which, I was going to post some more about my life as of late, but I have more studying to do so I can't spend all night on here. 

Be well :)

My mother is the organic Paula Deen

Well I am back from vacation and back to school.

I didn't hit my goal of losing five pounds over my three week break, BUT I knew it was a lofty goal when I set it. That being said, I am down one pound from the start of break.

One pound? That normally is not an amount that really means anything to me.
However.

I explained earlier the nightmare that is food at my mother's house. So in reality, the fact that for the first time ever, I went to my mother's house for almost 5 days and didn't gain a single pound, is HUGE! (Pardon the pun).

I kept busy with visiting family and their in-ground pool was open so I went swimming at least twice a day, and my sister's husband likes to run so I went running with him three times. The running we did wasn't quite as productive as it would have been if I had run on my own because even though his sprint is faster than mine, he doesn't have my stamina (he's a soccer player) so there were periods of time we had to stop and walk when I would have kept going. And we only ran 3-5 miles each time to they weren't super long runs either. But better than nothing. Between all of the swimming and running and visiting, I managed to avoid most eating, and I guess the eating I did do I managed to cancel out with exercise. Woohoo! Stoked.

My mother is recovering from surgery so she didn't do as much cooking as usual. Just 3 dinners, which were self-serve and disorganized so again, easy to only eat what I wanted. Then, the day before I left, mom made me the usual giant breakfast: Three egg omelette, cooked in bacon grease, and "two slices" (about 3 times the normal thickness) of banana bread, slathered in butter.

So much food. It tasted good, but it was WAY too much food. Fortunately, after I had picked at the eggs for about 20 minutes and fed half of the bread to my niece, my brother was hungry and I asked if he wanted the rest of my breakfast. He said yes, and was happy to eat it. (Ugh, to be a 27 year old athletic male... he piles away sooo much food and is so skinny).

I sometimes wonder if my mother realizes how much she eats. I want to suggest to her a food diary or something but I know she would be offended. She's too emotional about food and ALWAYS thinks that her weight problems are "not her fault". Her food choices are very healthy (lots of local, organic fruits and veggies, organic soy protein drink mixes without added crap, etc.) but she eats constantly. Especially for what little activity she has been getting since she had surgery back in March. It was an intestinal problem that prompted the surgery and she has had trouble eating solid food since then but she still consumes a lot of juice and smoothie-type drinks and hasn't been able to get much physical activity yet so I think her calorie count is still too high. She renders her own lard from a pig that she was slaughtered and makes her own butter out of local cream from grass-fed cows so yes, her food choices are healthier than their mainstream alternatives, but I think she thinks she can eat as much of it as she wants and not gain weight because it's "healthy". But when it comes to calories, if you're consuming more than you're burning, you won't lose weight. But it's impossible to have a rational conversation with her about it so I just have to listen to her complain.

But anyway. I'm back to the grind at school. This term I am taking an elective, which I have wanted to do for a while but I haven't found a way to fit it into my schedule. This one fit into my schedule but it's going to be crazy. I'm currently taking 11 classes so if my posting becomes even less frequent, I apologize. My free-time is rapidly dwindling.
But hey, less time for eating, right?

Vacation post #2

I ran again today, which is good but it wasn't enough to make up for the cookies and beer I consumed last night. I ran 5 miles in the sweltering heat. I then went to the beach to swim but my legs were so worn out from the run and the waves were so strong it wasn't even fun.

In other news, I love my mother-in-law, she's kind and generous and makes my life better in so many ways. That being said, she's so out of touch when it comes to food/dieting. She's constantly "dieting", so she claims. Says she has been her whole life. But if this is her idea of dieting, she has no clue. I knew she ate frequently because she always talks about her hypoglycemia and how she has to eat every two hours so she doesn't pass out. She says that is mostly to blame for why she is so overweight. I almost felt sorry for her, until I actually have paid attention to what she consumes. If she's really concerned about her blood sugar, she's doing it all wrong. She needs to learn portions.
Take today for example.

She woke up, had a large bowl of cereal with milk and also coffee with cream and sugar. An hour later, she was getting ready to go to the beach (which is right across the road and she only goes for an hour or two). So she packed some almonds (with sugar coating) and then made herself a sandwich. A full-blown meat and cheese sandwich. And ate that on the way to to beach. Then about an hour later, she started snacking on the sugary almonds. Then, an hour later (after I have had only a banana and have run 5 miles and swam for 30 minutes), we all head back to the house to have lunch. She gets out the Triscuits, puts 6 of them on a plate, globs about 2 tbsp of cream cheese on each one, and puts smoked salmon on top of each glob of cream cheese. As soon as she finishes that, she scoops about two and half cups of leftover jambalaya onto a plate, heats it up, and eats it. As she's doing this, I make for myself a bed of lettuce, and put a small piece of raw salmon on top of it, and drizzle on some soy sauce and sushi vinegar. My mother-in-law looks at it and says "Oh, you're eating a salad? I'll have to keep up with your salad habits". So, she polishes off her jambalaya, and dishes herself out some lettuce, puts a chickpea salad that she's made (doused in oil) on top of the lettuce, pours more oil on top, and eats that.
Ten minutes after she finishes her salad, she devours a brownie with ice cream.

And it's only 2 in the afternoon! We're still going out for dinner tonight! I think she thinks that she eats "diet food" and so she should be skinny, but I can't even begin to think of how many calories she consumes on a daily basis. With no exercise! She's been eating like this every day. Eating a salad doesn't "cancel out" other calories consumed. It only adds more.

And I remember one time when she made a passing remark when I was eating a cookie, that she wishes she had my "young metabolism" so she could "eat like me". What?! She eats soooo much more than I do. And doesn't exercise nearly as much.

Vacation post!

So, as it turns out, Husband loves this laptop he got me so he decided to bring it along on vacation. That means I can read blogs and post! I can't keep updated daily because people are generally everywhere so it's hard to be discrete, but I slept really late today and every one is already at the beach (except for one person who is taking a mid-morning nap so I don't have to worry about him) so I have a little alone time to blog!

I'm happy to report that up until last night, I have done VERY well avoiding food. It's surprisingly easy to do because there are quite a few people here in vacation and every one just kind of does their own thing. Plus, I tend to forget that no one in Husband's family has an eating disorder so no one is watching any one else's food intake like a hawk. It's great.

So travelling went as planned. I had some carrots on the way to the airport, nothing at the airport and then spent most of the ten hour ride from the airport to the beach sleeping so that rid me of any unnecessary snacking. I had a close run-in with some combos (those cheese pretzel things) and because at one point my father-in-law needed to sleep (they drive overnight) so Husband drove and it was my job to keep him awake. I sat down next to the combos and very soon after dug my hand in to eat a couple (I have a weakness for anything salty) and they were almost gone. So Husband and I polished them off but I only ended up eating 6 of them. Nothing I can't recover from.

First thing we did when we got down here was have breakfast. I had a biscuit and two eggs with cheese. Pretty fattening stuff but I am giving myself a little more leeway because I am so active down here.
So we hit the beach from there. I went for a walk, then swam for an hour in the ocean (lots of work!) then napped in the sun. Lunch time came around and people sporadically went back to the car to make sandwiches for lunch. I was getting hungry but it's easy to say no to food when you are currently on the beach in a bikini. So when they asked me if I wanted a sandwich, I politely declined. And praise the Lord! No one here has an ED so no one thought it suspicious when I said "no thanks, I'm not hungry".

I have also managed to run twice. My Sunday run was the best because I was able to run as far as I wanted and I burned a good 517 Calories. Yesterday my friend wanted to come with me and I felt bad saying no, even though she is not a very good runner so I knew I couldn't go as far with her, but it ended up working out okay because I made the mistake of having salad for lunch, which was not fully settled before my run and it made my stomach hurt something fierce. So we went about two and half miles and burned about two hundred-something Calories. Better than nothing.

Also, I am estimating using my run-keeper app. I just downloaded it and so far I love it! I think the Calorie count is more accurate than plugging the miles into Daily Mile. That thing WAY over-estimates. Run keeper takes into account elevation and changes in speed, etc. and it seems a lot more accurate.

So as I mentioned before, my eating was great until last night when I had been drinking a little. Then I got an upsetting text from my brother (I won't bore you with the details, every one is fine, my family is just VERY inconsiderate) and I was a little drunk and furious which totally sent me into a small binge. It was about a 600 Calorie binge. Normally, this would seem huge, but I have spent the past three days steadily restricting and constantly moving (running, swimming, playing frisbee, kayaking) so I know I had racked up a huge deficit so it hasn't set me back completely. I'm a little disappointed I don't have a scale here because I can feel my clothes are looser, which is an AWESOME feeling, but I will have to wait until July to see if I have lost. I am going to my parent's next week but my mom's scale SUCKS. It is literally older than I am, it's not digital and it reads about 15 pounds lighter than I actually am. My mother gets mad whenever she uses mine because she says "It lies and says she weighs too much" (Like, yeah, my newer digital scale is the one lying) but I have compared my scale to the ones at my school (like, professional/doctor grade with the slidey bar things) and my scale is pretty spot on. Sorry mom, you weigh more than you think you do.

I want to run right now, while my stomach is empty and I don't have to worry about it hurting later, but I didn't bring enough running shorts. I knew there was a washer a dryer here so I only brought two pairs of running shorts, but I haven't had enough clothes for a full load and no one else has put clothes out to be washed so I haven't been able to wash my sweaty running clothes to go for another run. I'll have to go do some serious swimming I guess.

Cookie death

Miranda and Kitty, you are both right. My mother is going to be obnoxious about the whole thing, but she is just going to have to deal.

And Kitty, that's part of the problem. My mother's weight fluctuates a lot because she is so fucked up about food too and she HATES it when people are thinner than she is. Really, whenever I visit, I always hope she is thin because if she is, she is less likely to force-feed every one else. But when other people are thinner than her it makes her determined to fatten every one up. Yes, I'm sure part of it is associating food with love and she is trying to show "love" to our family by feeding us, but mostly it's a skinny thing because when she is thinner, she doesn't do it. She just wants every one else to be fatter than she is. 

Yesterday went well. I started off my morning reading through some of Ana Regzig's blog. Always so motivating. So, with no food in my stomach, I went outside and ran 13 miles. It's crazy how a little motivation can spur an incredible run. For the rest of the day all I had was a "refuel" protein shake (180), coffee (0), almond milk (30), salad with mustard/vinegar and feta cheese (150) and a very small portion of chicken and sugar snap peas (300? Not totally sure). Oh and lots and lots of water. And it paid off. I woke up this morning at a fantastic weight! Lower than I was expecting and I didn't even feel dehydrated. 

Today started off well. I did wake up hungry but made myself a large "iced latte" of unsweetened almond milk and strong iced coffee for about 50 calories. Since we are leaving on vacation today, I figured I would also eat up the last of most of the vegetables before we left since a) they will spoil while we are gone, and b) I want to get plenty of fiber because my bowels tend to slow a lot when I travel and I don't want to be all bloated and backed up while on vacation. So my intake was mostly almond milk and vegetables, and I figured I would leave it at about that because I pretty much never eat anything when I travel anymore. But then I went to my neighbor's to give him a key to our place while we're gone. He asked me if I would like any cookies that his wife just made. I lied and said I had already been eating cookies today and that I shouldn't. He said okay and left it at that. A few minutes later, his 4 year old daughter came up to me with a tray full of warm cookies and offered me one. I tried to turn them down, but she was persistent so I had one. Ugh. I tried to nibble it slowly so as to be able to bring it inside my house and throw it away, but the neighbors were chatty and I felt like an ass just standing there holding a slightly nibbled on cookie. So I ended up finishing it. Which totally sucks, because I haven't gotten any significant exercise today, nor will I before I am on the beach in a bathing suit TOMORROW. Hopefully I won't have any more run-ins with food between now and then. 

Either way, now that I have these "incognito windows" on this computer, this is the only place from which I will blog and I am not taking this laptop with me. I will be gone for two weeks so you won't hear from me until sometime after July 4th. So good luck with the holiday to my American friends! We all know it's not a party without booze and fattening food, so let's do our best to make excuses and not feel obligated to partake. Sound good? Okay.

Views and Foods

So my viewership has shot up lately, which kind of worries me because I don't have any additional followers. I'm always paranoid some one will find this. Not that I have been terribly secretive about the content. Any one would know who it was if they found it.
Anyway.

My main reason for posting is to express my nervousness about what happens AFTER North Carolina. After NC I am spending a week in New England with my family. My mother already warned me "bring some larger clothes cause I'm making lots of food!"

Ugh. She loves to fatten people up. And whenever you turn down food she just gets mad. She goes right from cleaning up from breakfast to making lunch and then into making dinner. There's never a break. She then gets mad at every one because she doesn't have any "down time" to spend with us because she is so busy cooking and cleaning. Here's a thought... No one here is hungry. Stop force-feeding us!

It's going to take a lot of sneaking and arguing to get out of gaining weight. But I'm determined to do it. I WILL do it.

Starting now. Exercising as much as possible so as to keep my metabolism up because I KNOW I will be eating more when I am there than I do here. If I can at least stave off a gain, that will be accomplishment enough.

Difficult

It's hard not to be discouraged lately. I know I haven't been exercising as much lately because I had finals and then I hurt my ankle, but I cut back my calories to hopefully make up for it but it doesn't seem to be helping. I have a journal where I have been tracking my weight loss and I knew it had been probably a month since I have been able to mark off the next loss so I opened it up yesterday only to find it has been almost TWO MONTHS since I lost anything. Well, maybe not anything, but only about two pounds. The increments in the book are 3 pounds so I really only need to lose another pound. But it has to be "legitimate". Sure, just to see if it would spur my motivation, I have dehydrated myself from running in the heat and not eating enough and I could get the number on the scale down about 5 pounds, but I haven't just woken up in the morning after a normal day and been down any.

The really frustrating part is that on Friday, Husband and I are leaving for NC to the beach for a week. And I am a cow. I was doing so well for a while there and I had hope that I would be smaller than I am now. But I'm not. On the plus side, I am about 15 pounds lighter than when I went two years ago. Which on my 5'10" frame is hardly anything.

I need some motivation. I might have some soon though. I don't want to get my hopes up too soon because she has posted temporarily like this before, but Ana Regzig started posting again. I remember when I first found her blog a couple of years ago, reading it spawned a period of restricting and exercising in my life that I need to get back.




And Penny Nicole, thanks for your comment. I did read your  most recent blog post and I am glad my comment was able to help you feel better. I was afraid it might come off as arrogant but it really was my intention to help, so I'm glad it did.