Taking the Reins

The past few days have been so busy, I don’t even know where to start!  I guess I’ll first start with the fact that I’ve eased off my training a little bit to give the knee some time to recuperate.  I have an appointment in the morning with my general practitioner, who I will bring up to speed and insist on receiving a prescription for physical therapy. (It’s all crap if you ask me– one of the best orthopaedic surgeons in the country diagnosed me last year— why I have to go to somebody who doesn’t know squat about knees so that I can go to PT is absolutely beyond me, but I’m Miss Crankypants today so I will cease and desist) 

Open water swim was fabulous!  We had so much fun easing our way into the water, playing in the surf, and dolphin diving under the waves.  By the time we were supposed to head out to the buoys (about 1/8th of a mile offshore), I was ready to go!  Led the group off and away we went for our 1/2 mile ocean swim.  We had a couple Ironmen on boogie boards following us the whole time, and it was so comforting knowing that everyone in the water was in the same boat as me….it was fun, in fact!  We were giggling and laughing the entire time.  One thing is for sure, though– I need some better goggles!  I sighted a life preserver instead of a buoy in my final 1/8th mile and it took me totally off course. 

Saturday night, DH took me for a spin in his airplane.  Not his, but his flight school’s.  I was scared to death, but he totally put me at ease and showed me his “office” for the past three years.  I’m so happy we were able to experience that together. 

Chili’s was our celebratory dinner.  I’m not a huge fan of Chili’s, and our meal was true to form.  Ordered the firecracker tilapia, which is a broiled tilapia slathered in a spicy sweet sacue and served with microwaved rice and veggies.  It’s a sad day when you manage to make tilapia taste super fishy and the veggies are the tastiest thing on the plate.  I ate DH’s french fries instead.  (I was a little over the diet at this point– I swam in the ocean and flew in a propeller airplane, all in one day– I deserved those stinking french fries, especially after that tilapia from hell)

Sunday we tried to return my road bike, but the shop was steadfast in its refusal to take it back.  Apparently it’s normal for a new bike to require 3 tune-ups in less than 2 weeks.  So I took it home, and decided to ride the snot out of it until Trek does something to help me out. 

We met DH’s friend from DC in San Diego and had dinner at Outback, which gets kudos for its grilled chicken platter.  Came with veggies, NO BUTTER, and a small side of barbecue sauce.  Just enough, and super low in points.  I love that Outback gives me options.  (They did, however, pass off a sirloin steak on my hubby when we ordered the Victoria filet— I tried to explain to the cook that if that was a filet mignon, then it’s surely the flattest, toughest filet I’ve ever had in my life— but then I calmed down and tried to remind myself that we were in company and this was not the stinky bike shop)

Today was a nutty day at work, so I kept busy and didn’t snack too much.  Came home and DH and I went for a bike ride.  I did 10 miles in 40 minutes, nice and easy so as not to hurt the knee.  I should have gone for a 20 minute run afterwards, but I’m a baby and decided to take a little walk instead.  It was nice to get the hubby out for a little bit, though!  He turned around early and I found him under a tree by our street, but he was happy to rest and have the time to himself.  Worked out perfectly.

Here’s the food for today.  Must think about what’s for dinner!

So, after today’s events I am hereby Triathlon Barbie.  I have a bum right knee that swells and clicks, sore shoulders from poor stroke form, a kinked neck from going to sleep every night with wet hair, razor burned legs because I’m too cheap to go get waxed, am breaking out like a teenager because of all the sweat and suncreen, am sporting a Farmer’s Tan that could rival any Midwesterner, my hair is frizzy from chlorine, my credit card is overwhelmed with charges for fitness apparel, equipment, and race entries, I crave carbohydrates like they are going out of style, my friends are bored with me because all I talk about is exercise, I run slower than molasses, and I just can’t stop because I LOVE IT!

I hereby promise to uphold the Barbie ways which include whining when I feel like it, being bitchy on cue and knowing that NO MATTER WHAT or WHO (yeah even if she is a rich, plastic surgery induced, exercise obsessed, bubble head) comes across your path - that I am Barbie…..beautiful and worthy!!! 

Just promise me that I can still be Triathlon Barbie even if I fall apart and have to walk my race? 

 Here’s the day today– no exercise because the knee was painful and swelled:

Oops!  Didn’t realize Chipotle was SO SO SO bad for me.  Darn husband is obsessed. I should have eaten 1/2 a burrito!!  Damn.  Oh well.  I thought I had the points for the ice cream for dinner tonight. Guess I was VERY, VERY wrong.  (Guess that explains why I feel so full)

Wish me luck in the open water swim tomorrow morning.  I’m gonna need it, because I’m scared!!!

I finally put up those horribly embarassing before/in progress triathlon photos.  While I didn’t have the guts to include my face in these bra and spandex shots, rest assured it’s me under all that.  Funny how you can be at goal and be so imperfect, huh?  Anyway, I feel a little vulnerable, but I think the sport of triathlon is soooo phenomenal and fun that if I can motivate somebody to join by showing some photos of me getting buff, well, then that’s worth the public humiliation.

Today’s my first day off from exercise since Friday, and while it’s against my will, my body and muscles are begging me to keep them inactive for a day.  Yesterday’s swim/run just left me tired, and for the first time since we started mid-June, my legs actually feel like lead weights!  I took a multivitamin when I got home and am forcing fluids, but I think I just need to rest.  Knee was all weirded out yesterday, too, so I’m going to work my schedule the next few days so that I avoid running.

Our first ocean swim is on Saturday, and I’m sort of excited.  I did a little research, and there has only been 1 shark attack in Orange County over the past 50 years.  I like my odds! (DH says we’re primed and ready for one thanks to that statistic— he’s a meanie)  I also want to try out the wetsuit in a colder environment, since the lake is too darn warm and I feel like I’ll die if I go race speed in it.  Plus, I’ve been scared for so long– I want to overcome my fears NOW.  Solana Beach Tri is on Sunday.  It’s still accepting applicants.  Hubby wants to meet a friend for lunch in San Diego on Sunday…..  Are the stars aligning and telling me that if I have a good swim, I should do Solana Beach???  I want to race!

OK, enough about that.  Back to food.  Thankfully, feeling kind of cruddy has killed the appetite a bit.  Am liking these 24 point targets, but as I suspected, am STILL not losing weight.  Shocker there.  Anyway, here’s the food for the day so far:

Today was just one of those days.  I felt really tired and drained during my workout yesterday, and despite my best efforts at getting good sleep last night, I woke up coughing.  Coughed half the morning, and have just been feeling yucky ever since.  I managed to make it to my Tri training this afternoon, as there really isn’t anything wrong with me aside from being “bleh.” 

Today we did a swim-run “brick.”  Put on our wetsuits and did a race start into the lake…..she started the 40+ group first, followed by the 30’s, and then my group went out after them all.   I’d passed everyone by the 100th meter and away I went.  Aside from a choking spell after a breathing mishap, the swim wasn’t too bad.  The wetsuit restricts my motion, so the shoulder felt happy.  Anyway, after 20 minutes and a 1/2 mile, out I came.  Had some trouble grabbing the strap to take the wetsuit off, but once unzipped, I was out in no time.  Ran to the transition area, threw on my tank top, switched my swim cap for a ball cap, and then attempted to put on my socks.  Ugh– must do something about cotton socks.  It took me forever to get my shoes and socks on!

After finally transitioning, I set off on my 20 minute run.  It started out all uphill, which was a total bummer.  The whole time I was thinking, “keep running– those cute young college boys can’t see you walk!”  (Dude, why do I care?  I’m married and old!!!)  Anyway, I kept running, but did have to walk after 5 minutes to get a 1-minute breather.  Turned around after 10 minutes, and then headed back to finish the roughly 2 miles in 18:32.  Not bad for feeling like crud!

Here’s my food for the day:

But I’m not.  I went shopping.  Amazing what happens to your eating habits the days after you hit the grocery store and are stocked and ready to rumble!

Today I was totally exhausted.  Between my late night fundraiser on Friday, the 8am workout (45 minutes away!) on Sunday, and the cat deciding to raise holy hell at 3am, I was hurtin’ for certain this morning.  Not even my cup o’ joe was enough to pull me out of my black hole of sleepiness.  But then I got an e-mail from Coach, telling me she’d be teaching a swim lesson in my neck of the woods tonight and that she’d be happy to watch me swim to see what was going on with my rotator cuff.  Woohoo!  Instant energy.  I love lessons. 

So, I powered through the day, picked my bike up at the shop, then dragged the hubby to my impromptu swim lesson.  He studied his flight manuals as the sun went down behind the Saddleback mountains….it was just gorgeous.  And the lesson was a blast, too!  Turns out I’ve got a little issue with my stroke that is hurting my shoulder.  2 exercises later, it didn’t hurt anymore!  (Well, relatively speaking– it is injured and I will have to take care of it, but the drills were painless compared to the rest of the swimming)  I feel totally energized right now– I love swimming.

On the food front, I had a high point day, but it was all high quality food with the exception of desert.  Stomach feels less poochy, so something must be working.  Here’s the day:

I hope so!  Because I’m certainly slow.  But it’s all good.

Just got back from run practice with the Divas. Kept using our walk/run strategy, except we extended the run to 5 minutes followed by 1 minute of walk. The first five was steady and aerobic, while the second was supposed to test our lactic acid threshold. Well, my limiter is the aerobic, so I just chugged along same as usual, watching the heart rate to make sure I didn’t let it get so high that I couldn’t keep running. Managed the first 1.5 miles in 14:30, and then kept it up (mostly) through 3 miles for a total of 29:32. This is fantastic news!! A personal best for me, and it means that perhaps I’ll even get faster in the coming month. Very important, because the run is my weak point, and I will lose a lot of time to you crazy marathon people if I don’t watch out. Anyways, I’m a happy girl right now as I sit here with ice on my knee. I’m going to beat my times from 2004 if it kills me. (Trust me, it shouldn’t be that hard…..I was an uber slowpoke)

Eating today has been “fuel” oriented. Choked down a Lara Bar at 6:50am, then had my recovery English muffin when I got home. Don’t have THAT many points left over for lunch and dinner, but I’ll get there. Hitting the store today and am hoping there’s some healthy stuff on sale!

DH is talking about going to Coldstone now, so I’m a little cranky about that.  If he’d told me about this earlier today, I could have planned for 4 points!!  Butthead.  Now I get to watch him eat a ton of garbage while I stare into space and hate the world because I could gain a pound with one bite of “Founder’s Favorite.”

Just got back from a nice, long swim session.  What a release!  It feels great to get back out there and crank out a good workout.  I have to say, though, the man floating around on his noodle was a bit much.  What’s the point?!!  It’s a gym– you don’t hit the lap pool to be a water baby when you can do that at your homeowners’ association pool!  Oh well.  I get grumpy when I have company in the pool.  They either breastroke around and kick you when you split lanes, or they want to race you when all you are doing is drills or “long and slow.”  Puhlease!  OK, I’m just sleep deprived and grumpy in general.

Am planning on hitting the bike shop in a few to get my bike fixed so I can shift gears again.  Hitting the big hills whilst stuck in 2nd gear just really isn’t productive.

Here’s the day so far:

That’s my consensus from my trip to San Francisco the past two days.  I recall a previous post where I said that if you went to a nicer restaurant, they’d accommodate you with good choices.  Well, I lied.  I ate at this place on Wednesday night that had NOTHING safe on the menu to order…they even plate their filet mignon with butter.  All of the sides were creamed, fried, or involved something evil like mac n’ cheese.  When I asked if there were any vegetables that they had broiled or grilled, he said, “we can boil the fava beans for you.”  Oh, yeah, like I’m going to order boiled fava beans?!!!  Good grief!  I ended up with a 6 oz. filet, NO butter, and succotash, which I’m sure was soaked in it.  But what can you do?  I was with foodies, and they ordered everything on the menu it seemed.  Thank goodness steak tartar makes me nauseous or else I would have sampled more. 

The good news, though, is that despite the horrible food, I did walk my rear off.  We had meetings every few hours at buildings several blocks away from each other, so I was a walking fool.  Quite frankly, I am whooped!

Today I had swim practice in the lake again.  30 minutes of long and slow swimming….ended up doing 6 laps in 27 minutes and then leisurely floating to shore with some new pals who swim equally fast.  (Slow today, but still faster than our group!)  Fun times– we run on Sunday, so I’m sort of dreading that.

Anyway, am back.  Will post a menu for tomorrow.  Am exhausted tonight!

I spent the first half of my morning on the Weight Watchers boards reading about women on the fitness boards who were struggling with losing the pounds.  It seems there are a number of us whose weight loss stalls out during exercise…..to be more precise, exercise in excess of 4 points a day.  (So, let’s say, that’s 400 calories + burned in strenuous activity per day)  Some women preach not to eat activity points and that those who are stalled out are somehow “cheating” on the program or suffering from portion distortion.  Others urge the posters to eat what they earn and try to realize that there are more components to the healthy lifestyle besides weight loss.

So I could totally relate to these poor women who are working their rears off, training for half marathons, and still walking around with poochy bellies DESPITE being on program.  Taking Jynell’s advice once more, I’m going to add 2 daily points to my total and see what comes of that?  Obviously there is a huge gap between what Sparkpeople claims I need to eat in one day and where I end up with WW.  The math is simple, they say:  calories in = calories out.  Well, 1300 calories are going in each day (presumably being burned up every day, as most physicians claim we need at least 1200 a day) and 2500+ are going out each week.  Um, that’s 10,000 calories in a month…..why am I not losing weight?  Hello?  Is my body stupid?  My brain isn’t!  Anyway, am going to try to boost the metabolism and feed myself some more fruits and veggies with those extra points I’m getting.  Am also going to eat the activity points, and maybe even the flex points?  Oh well, we’ll see.

Tonight, to run off some of the nerves I have about my trip tomorrow and DH’s job interview, I took my new tangerine bike for a ride.  I was supposed to do a BRICK….bike then run….but the logistics were tough today.  I didn’t have my cyclometer on my new bike, so I had to wing it with the distance that I went….and I didn’t start my watch, so I had to wait until I got home to check the clock!  Anyway, managed 35 minutes on the bike and ended up doing 9 miles…..not bad for it all being uphill and not being able to shift out of 2nd gear!!  (It wants a tune-up)  So I dumped my bike in the house, changed hats and shoes, and then ran out to do my 15 minutes of running.  It took me 5 minutes to get down the hill and across the traffic to the trail, so this gave my heart rate WAY too much time to calm down.  In fact, my legs felt fresh when I started running, and this is never the case with a BRICK.  So I decided to go for 10 minutes each direction and extend my 15 to 20.  Ended up running 2 miles in 19:30, which is a little better pace than I’ve been doing.  Woohoo!  Got home and was relaxed.  Now I’m just hungry, so I’m going to go scavenge for something……

Good thoughts for tomorrow, everyone.  I need DH to get this job– it’d really mean the world to us!

Wow, today was pretty rough….and it’s only just after noon!

 Met Coach and my fellow divas down at the trailhead, where we learned about Coach’s awesome International-distance race yesterday.  She was 20 seconds away from medaling, so we were kind of bummed for her!  At any rate, she sent us up the hill for 2 miles, then down for 2, and then repeat 2 more times.  It was pretty tough!  I think we were averaging 10 mph on the way up and 24 mph on the way down.  Suffice it to say, it was a BLAST going downhill, but not quite sure it was worth all the sucking wind to get UP the hill?!  After the bike, which took me about 52 minutes (and I have to brag here– only 3 Divas ended up ahead of me), we took off on a 15 minute run as part of our “BRICK” workout.  I was first out of transition, because I’m stupid :), and off I went on my run.  Legs felt like jelly again, but that was gone after two minutes of running.  I was passed by the threesome that were ahead of me on the bike, but that was all good.  Ran my own race, although I have to say that running is by far my weakest event.  I can run/walk a 10-minute mile, but I feel like I will die the entire time.  Need to figure out how to bring my heart rate down after all of that.  Anyways, I returned first so naturally Coach thought I was super fast.  I hated to disappoint, but I admitted that I turned around first!!

So, back home I came to shower up.  Thanks to Jynell’s insistence on eating more activity points, I played around on Sparkpeople and plugged in my current weight and the calories that I burn, on average, every week.  Sparkpeople has me at 1880-2200 calories a day!  Holy cow.  I’m going to post what I’ve eaten through this very moment below (ends with the bun, for when I update later)….and Sparkpeople says it’s 877 calories.  Holy cow.  I have to eat 900 more calories today?!   We’ll see about that one.

Anyway, here’s the binge.  You can see where I’m having some issues in reconciling WW points with Sparkpeople.  Do I just take more points?  I only burned 700 calories today….

EDIT:  I bought a road bike!!!  OMG, they are so expensive, but I bit the bullet and just went for it after DH encouraged me.  Got a flaming orange Trek 1000, and I think I like it!  So, next week I hope to be ahead of all the others on the “A” team during my ride! 

Yup, I’m finally there.  I’m THAT girl in the pool that is purposeful!  I’m not just breastroking from side to side with no plan. I’m not sprinting for 50 yards only to ruin my endurance for the entire workout.  Heck, I HAVE a workout.  I even have a little pull buoy with my name on it that I take with me, along with my workout in a plastic baggie to read.  I’ve arrived!

You may laugh, but I’ve always felt out of place at the gym’s pool.  I never used to be able to swim continuously for very long, and I was just awkward in the water, despite growing up on the swim team.  I hated being seen in my bathing suit and didn’t even know how to get into my swim cap properly. But over the past few weeks, something has clicked and I *love* swimming.  Did everyone catch that?  This is momentous.  I love it!  It’s so invigorating, yet relaxing.  Had a fantabulous time at the pool this morning while hubby studied for his interview back at home.  A couple hundred meters of warm up, so catch-up and high elbow drills and pulls, then did a timed 800 meter to use as a baseline for the next 8 weeks.  (That’s all I have until the race now– 8 weeks!!)  I actually did the 800 meters in 16 minutes, so I was amazingly proud of myself.  Had lots left in the tank, which is what coach wants, and actually wanted to do more!  But this is “honor thy body” week and tomorrow coach is going to slaughter us in our bike/run practice, so I used my brain and did a few sprints afterwards followed by some easy drills and a cool-down.  Lasted 40 minutes, and I was just so confident!  There were guys coming in next to me and trying to keep up (please, I’m doing a longer distance swim here– like I’m going to race you down the lane when I have 16 more to go!), and women who’d jump in and swim for two minutes and then leave….and I just felt awesome.

Anyway, I highly, highly recommend swimming.  Pull up some beginner workouts off the internet and jump right in– low impact on the knees, and just so relaxing.

I plugged my swim into my Sparkpeople activity log and was pretty proud of the results.  Here’s my activity for the week:

Sparkpeople calculates calories burned based on the age and weight you enter (I think I’m still there at 148 lbs, so I’m probably burning a little more than this), and the activity.  It actually gets pretty specific, including different swim strokes and different running paces.  So I really like it, as I use it as a baseline for determining my activity points…..medium and high exertion just don’t work for me on the WW sliding scale, so it’s helpful to get a better numerical idea of calories burned.  I try to eat half, as my regular WW points equate to anywhere from 1050 to 1300 calories per day, and every nutritionist I’ve met has said that is too low when working out.  (I think I probably eat 1500-1600 now, which I think is more than enough?)  Anyway, wanted to add this.  I love seeing my activity, and this shows me I’m not over-exerting too early!  I’ll leave August to the twice a day workouts.

Here’s my eating so far today.  Here’s hoping it’s better than yesterday.  I wrote about it on Blogspot, but I’m too ashamed to post it here:

Today was a good day on pretty much all fronts!  I cannot tell you how helpful it is to have an insanely busy morning and afternoon.  It really helps keep the hunger at bay and make my days infinitely more managable.  To top it all off, I got to choose our business lunch location today, and I picked Boneheads…..where they serve up grilled fish and vegetables with amazing spicy dry rubs.  It was fantastic!

Came home after work, did a quick change, and then headed to the gym for an hour-long spin class.  This particular instructor is very young and loves to just go all out all the time, so I paid close attention to my heart rate monitor and made sure to just “run my own race,” so to speak.  I ignored her when we climbed big hills (had to keep cadence up!), kept spinning when she did these crazy arm exercises (my rotator cuffs are acting up thanks to swimming, so I don’t need to ruin them in spin class!), and left before “abs” so I could do a quick run afterwards.  I felt great!  Really, this was my best class yet.  Instead of feeling like I was dead to the world and had nothing left, I felt refreshed and ready for more….and I worked hard, too!  There really is something to be said for ramping up training.

Tomorrow is a nice, easy swim in the pool followed by a day of rest.  Apparently, Coach is going to kill us on Sunday.  We’ve spent the whole week building up to Sunday, so it’s gonna be crazy!  Fingers crossed I make it out alive. 

Here’s the day:

Forget being scared about becoming part of the ocean food chain or not being able to touch the bottom.  The lake I swim in has this amoeba that causes something called “swim itch!”  I’m still itching, even after 2 showers, and I don’t have any bites.  Holy cow!  Bring me the ocean, please.  I’m now perfectly willing to forego the calmer lake experience.

Today was day 1 of open water swim training.  I learned 2 things: 1) my wetsuit makes me really freaking hot (and not in the Batman, rockin’ hot bod kind of way) and 2) my sighting is really bad (as in, I swim like I’m drunk!).  The good news is my butt floats and I don’t have to work nearly as hard to swim, so life is pretty darn good.  Had a blast today!!  Everyone is really starting to open up, and I’m going through this journey with a great bunch of women.  Only did about 20 minutes of swimming after we had our coaching and inspirational story, but it was still good stuff.

I ate the majority of my points (again) before 5pm tonight.  It’s fine on days like today where I work out at 6:30pm and come home too late for dinner, but every other day it’s totally unacceptable.  I must try to break this habit!  I successfully ignored the break room cookies today, but I still managed to down a lot of snacks, however healthy they may be. 

Here’s the day:

And I can tell you right now I’m heading back for more.  Maybe just a light English muffin with some spray butter and cinnamon?  We’ll see.  But I’m going to hit up some flex points because I’m starving!!  Argh.  Poorly planned day…..but on the plus side, at least my knee is okay!

***EDIT:  I ate like a pig after I posted.  Added a bagel with 1tbsp cream cheese (okay, only 2 points) and I know there was something else….I just don’t remember?!  Man.  Well, I am just fessing up.  I know that the bagel and the cereal and whatever else I ate added up to 7 or 8 points and I was marveling at how much I wanted to eat, but oh well….  The good news is I’m sitting here and my pants are loose!  Size 10 H&M.  (The US equivalent of a regular size 8)  Woohoo!  So I am not too upset.

There is a box of cookies less than 30 feet away from me in the break room right now.  Adorably-shaped, frosted sugar cookies decorated like soccer balls and jerseys and goals.  They are disappearing quickly, but I can’t help but feel left out of the joyous gastronomic soccer celebration.  Why?  Argh!!

Sorry, just thought I would write out my frustrations rather than join everyone else and eat.  This is why I hate days when I am stuck in the office!  Get me out of here.

Ouch!!!  I think I angered my knee today, despite taking it easy on my 3-mile run this afternoon.  My body had a day off, and 3 days since the last short run, but I guess it wanted more?  Wish I was a knee reader.  Here’s hoping that tomorrow morning I can walk and I’m still training for September 9th.  Argh.

So, today I ate 20 points by the time I was home at 5pm.  It didn’t seem like much at the time, but those silly almonds really are tons and tons of points!  So I absolutely HAD to run my booty off tonight so that I could have dinner.  I guess the eating comes in cycles.  One week I will brag because I stay within my points for days in a row and rock the program, and then the next week I can’t keep food out of my mouth.  So silly.  I blamed a lot of my weight fluctuation on hormones and the effects of going off birth control for the first time in my adult life (it was giving me fevers!), but maybe I’m just overeating?!

Did a nice 3-mile run tonight on the trail by my house, which is downhill for the first mile and a half and then when I turn around, it’s all uphill.  And I wonder why I’m dying when I get back!!  I did the walk/run strategy, making myself walk every 3 minutes so that I take it easy and pace myself.  I also noticed that this strategy helped my heart rate stay at 176 beats per minute, which is actually a nice, happy hear rate for me.  (I can go on and on at 176, but when I hit the 180’s, I’m pushing it)  I finished the run in 31 minutes, shaving 2 full minutes off my time last week without even trying.  So this was a good thing!  except for the knee, of course.  I’m icing, so hopefully nothing major will come of it.

So here is the absolutely crazy eating day. I’m hoping I’ll be fine once I get my protein shake in me, but who knows.