Derbyversary, Part I

I have probably thought of topics for a thousand blog posts in the last couple days, but have not had one second to sit down and actually write any of them. It's now 9pm on Sunday night and I am completely exhausted. Between baking a cake, practice, a bout, helping with our Derby 101 class, another practice and a team cookout, I feel like I have run the derby marathon. Four more days of derby start tomorrow, then a 2 day break followed by 7 days straight up to our league championships. Whew...

This month marks my one year "derbyversary" and before I put on skates and aspired to a roller girl, my life was totally different. Generally my evenings consisted of cooking dinner, eating dinner, watching tv, and going to bed. More often or not, a bottle (or two of wine) was involved. Weekends were typically full of drinks too.

It wasn't like we were going out and partying, but it added up just the same. A typical Saturday started with beers while we did yard work, then maybe go out for lunch and a drink there too. On the way home, grab a bottle of wine and drink that while we made dinner. I don't think any of us felt like we needed to drink, it was more like something that came from lack of having anything better to do.

Between the pregnancy, miscarriage, and the drinking, I put on about 10 (more) pounds and was basically a lazy slug. When I finally decided to do this derby thing, part of the reason was that I wanted to get in shape. Apparently the thought never occurred to me that I should be in better shape to play derby.

When I first started skating with my Meat class, I didn't have a ton of trouble keeping up in the endurance department (I mean we were all newbs), but I was definitely slow. As a former high school athlete (read: half-assed attempts at random sports without much enthusiasm), I gave myself a little too much credit for having done sporty things in my adolescence.

The first endurance practice that I ever attended with my league was probably one of the worst, yet important days of my derby career to date. It was an outdoors practice in late summer and we were going to skate 12 miles around a point. From the start I knew things were going to be bad. I was trying really hard and yet a giant gap was forming in front of me in the pace line. In no time, other skaters were going around me, including other meaties who I had seen quit in long drills or endless pace lines when I had kept going. At one point I remember someone passing me and patting me on the shoulder. I know she meant well, but the look on her face was clearly one of pity.

It turned out that the problem that day was the rock hard starter wheels that had come on my skates; they made pavement a miserable, torturous experience. After a very kind vet skater loaned me some hybrid wheels, I went back and skated that point with ease. I felt a little vindicated, but nothing could change how that day made me feel. Mostly because it made me realize how other people must see me and forced me to look at myself the same way.

That endurance practice was a wake-up call and I vowed to make changes. At first I just started by trying harder. I tried to never have to stop in a drill and I practiced as much as I could. A lot of times I would seek out other skaters with skills I envied and take mental notes, trying out what I saw until I was able to start doing it myself.

I guess I did something right because when it came time for drafts, I was lucky enough to get drafted by the undefeated league champions. Frankly, I didn't know what they saw in me, but I was just ecstatic to skate with them... and that was when I found out that I hadn't even gotten to the real work.

The body you want

There are is a saying that I have heard a million times, but now that I have started this weight loss/derby journey are really starting to click for me:

Eat and train for the body you want, not the body you have.

Duh, right? If you want to be thin, eat less. If you want to be big, eat more. Right? Kind of, but it's so much more complicated than that.

First, which version of thin and "in shape" do you want to be?

If you picked the one on the left, please promptly click the x on this tab and move along. If you picked the one on the right, I like you, you can stay.

Now, I'm not putting down runners or marathoners and I know they don't all look like this. I'm just trying to make a point here. The body on the left is a result of a lot of cardiovascular training and far too few calories to sustain a healthy (imo) musculature. She might be able to run for hours straight, but how much strength does she have? Do you think she could counter-block you on the track? Oh, hell no.

What are your goals for your new body? Do you want to be able to get lower (need quads and hammies for that)? Do you want to take a hit (need lots of core and lower body strength)? Do you want to be able to juke around the pack (need strong legs and power)? Or do you just want to look good in DerbySkinz? If so, go ahead and set your calorie goals to 1200 and hop on the treadmill.

While I was trolling the interwebz earlier, I came across an article titled "What I Wish I Knew As A Female Athlete" and while I don't necessarily agree with needing the 5-6 small meals (I say eat whatever, whenever for the most part), the rest of her advice is sound:

3. Eat better foods more often and don’t eat less. As a female athlete in our current society, there is pressure to be “thin” instead of “healthy.” Many females do this by restricting calories and working out more. This hinders athletic and overall performance and can actually slow any weight loss (if it is needed at all). Female athletes need to focus on developing and maintaining lean muscle and fueling their bodies for competition. This is done by eating 5–6 small meals and snacks per day and drinking plenty of water. (What I Wish I Knew As A Female Athlete)

Yes, ladies you need muscle and fuel for that muscle. Let's not be a breed of skinny "fat" girls schlepping around the track getting knocked over by women with real strength. Losing weight shouldn't be starvation stacked on endless cardio. In fact, I've lost more weight since I stopped doing so much cardio.

Ok, enough of my ranting, but before I sign off on this post please read give yourself this self evaluation of your fitness plan:

1. Are you eating a healthy number of calories based on a proven calculation for your body weight/height?
2. Are you making sure that you are consuming at least 200 calories above your BMR, including exercise?
3. Are you lifting weights?

If you said no to any of these, I would really do some homework and make sure you're doing the right things for your body. Beware who you take advice from (even me, though I am only giving it based on my personal experience and those couple classes I took in college) and do your own research before putting anything into action.

p.s. Remember that fat guy who set the record for the number of Olympic medals won ever? He eats 12,000 calories a day. There's some perspective for ya.

Challenge Check-In (Day 66)

Today is the 66th day since I started this challenge and as of this morning I am exactly half way to my first goal: 

I have officially lost 25 pounds.

... squeeeee! Even though I hit a couple small plateaus, it's actually been easier than I thought it would. I hope that doesn't mean the second half is going to be a bitch.

58 days to lose 25 pounds

Anyway, let's break it down. Shall we?

If you remember, there were 124 days to hit my goal of 50 pounds lost. At 66 days, I am right on target.

Here are my mini-goals from here until then:

Goal #1 - To have lost 35lbs by Championships (5/12)
Goal #2 - To have lost 45lbs by our Deja Bruise Ball (6/16)
Goal #2 - To have lost 50lbs by ECDX (6/22)

I know it looks tight, but considering what I am accomplished so far, not impossible. After 66 days my motivation is still at 100% and I see small changes every single day. I feel good about the way that I am losing weight because I am never starving and I can allow myself to eat junky food if I want and still lose weight. I feel bad for all of those 1200 calorie suckers out there aerobicizing themselves to death... hey idiots, you're doin' it wrong.

Do all the things better

Last night I was determined to have a good practice with my team. I wanted to be fast (or slow if need be), aware, solid, and all those other adjectives that equate to awesome in derby. I typically define a good practice as having one or two moments that make me mentally high five myself while looking around to make sure someone else saw all that awesome! Ok, and it probably wasn't even that awesome, but it might just be that it's the first time I nailed a stop or a juke. I love these moments because it feels like progress, like things are clicking!

Occasionally and despite my high hopes, a practice can go from promising to demoralizing in one fell swoop. For me it usually starts with some kind of muscle cramp that my body just won't shut up about. All I can think of is how much it hurts. Then, in the first drill maybe I can't accomplish any of the objectives. At this point, I'm getting really frustrated and thinking about quitting for the night. I usually trudge on, but my brain is just a huge chorus of negative and by then, I'm screwed. This is basically what happened last night.

I would do anything to kill that little negative voice in my head that tells me not to bother counter blocking because I'm going to get hit out anyway or the one that says I will never get lead jammer because I am a chunky slow girl or that no one sees me as an asset on the track. I'm slowly learning to tell that voice to STFU, but its a sloooooow process and I still lose more days than I win.

Tonight is day 2 of many upcoming pre-championship practices, and another chance for me to have some 'aw, shit' moments, so here's to shutting off the I can'ts and listening to more I wills.

My mental theme for this practice comes from the almighty Yoda, "Do or do not. There is no try."

Wish me luck!

Update on eating more

I don't even know if I do it consciously, but Mondays always seem like a good time to check in with my body, weight loss, and nutrition goals. In my last post about re-evaluating my calorie goals I decided that I wasn't eating enough and so I upped my calories by about 400 over what I had been eating, but still only 200 above my BMR.

Here were my net (food - exercise) calories from the last week:

Monday: 1445 (355 remaining)
Tuesday: 1952 (152 over)
Wednesday: 1635 (165 remaining)
Thursday: 1890 (90 over)
Friday: 2722 (922 over ... yeah... that's what happens when you need Ledo pizza in your life or you will die)
Saturday: 1510 (290 remaining)
Sunday: 1799 (1 remaining)

My goal was to consume 12,600 calories over 7 days.
I ended up consuming 12,953 calories over 7 days.

According to the interwebz, if I am lightly active, my maintenance calories (to stay at this weight) are around 2500 per day. It takes a daily deficit of 500 calories to lose 1lb per week and 1000 to lose 2. By this math, I am on target to lose about 1.5lbs a week. Of course, my body does whatever it wants so we shall see.

As far as my weight this week, I have been "up" since the last time I had a loss but since TOM is right around the corner and I feel really bloaty (sorry one random guy who found this blog on accident thinking there might be fishnet booty shots). This morning I was down that "up" weight so my ticker is correct at 23 lbs lost despite the fact that I ate blue crabs slathered in salt yesterday.

My final analysis for this week is that I am going to keep going at the 1800 level for another week, then maybe drop it down to so my body doesn't get complacent? We'll see.

Crunch time

Photo Credit to
James Calder Photography

I have been on this roller derby journey for almost exactly one year and in that very short time I have: put on skates for the first time in about a decade, worked my butt off just to learn the most basic skills, completed the meat camp of a WFTDA charted team, passed my assessment to become a real league member, was drafted by a home team, and for my first home team season, I was lucky enough to be able to play in every single home team bout.

... but that could all change. In a little less than 3 weeks, my team will take the track with the goal of taking home our league's Skate of the Union championship trophy. While my team is incredible and supportive, they're also very competitive. Some would say to a fault, but those people are usually on other teams. This means that when May 12th rolls around, you can guarantee that 14 ready skaters will be on the roster and I want to be one of them.

I know that as a rookie I am just as much, if not more, on the cusp than some of the other incredible women on my team. After all, nearly half of my team is on the All Stars, another 2 have been on the travel team at some point, and several more could if they wanted to. There is no shortage of talent on my team.

I've learned at this point that my own mental limitations do more damage to my skating than any physical ones, but with the help of my team I'm starting to realize I'm faster, stronger, and know more than I give myself credit for. Now it's just a matter of remembering that every time I put my skates on.

I'll be busting my ass these next three weeks, but maybe this focus is what I need. Whether I am rostered or not, I'll at the very least be more focused and have a good start on next season.

p.s. I'm not saying I'll be very happy about not being rostered. I'm allergic to losing in any capacity, but I guess I will take it in stride. Wish me luck.

My derby story

So far I haven't written anything terribly personal on this blog, mostly because I'm pretty certain you aren't here to read about what I had for lunch today, but I feel compelled to explain why I am doing this whole thing and why I have the passion for derby that I do.

Sometime in mid 2010 I found out about a local roller derby league and immediately wanted to get involved. I looked up information about clinics and gear, but the time wasn't right and I didn't really pursue it.

At the end of November I started feeling strange. I was exhausted, emotional, and I just felt not normal. One Saturday morning I was driving and listening to a story on NPR about a woman who rescues dogs from Afghanistan and started bawling. Well, that made a light bulb come on in my head and lo-and-behold I found out I was pregnant.

I remember that when I told my boyfriend, I cried as if I were telling him it was terminal cancer. This was not my plan. I had no intentions of even having children, but abortion wasn't an option. After a while I started getting used to the idea, after all what choice did I have? Our family found a bigger house, started buying little baby things, and told our friends and family.

Then at the end of the year I started feeling like something wasn't right. A bad day at the emergency room confirmed that I had lost the baby. It was such a strange feeling because I hadn't even wanted this child and now I was devastated. I'm not typically a very emotional person, in fact my girlfriend says I have "man emotions," but this was one of the toughest things I had ever dealt with.

Two weeks before I found out I was pregnant, my best friend at work also found out she was pregnant. In addition to that, another woman in our office (of 6 women) was pregnant. Then a few months later, another one. For months after I lost the baby it was all around me for 8 hours a day - pregnant women, talk about baby showers, names, everything. The first time my co-worker brought her baby in, I had to leave so I didn't cry at work. I relied a lot on online communities and other women who had gone through the same thing, but I started to become obsessive and knew I needed to find some other focus.

In March derby drifted back into my peripheral and I knew I needed to do it. I went back to the links I had looked at so many months ago and found the next open clinic with a local league. I ordered gear (which arrived 2 whole days before the clinic) and started this crazy derby journey.

I have barely been playing roller derby for a year, but it has already changed my life in so many ways. I think that somewhere along the line I had forgotten how to be selfish when it came to taking care of my own needs and derby has given that back to me. It's given me back a drive that I hadn't had in a long time and has been a catalyst for a lot of positive changes in my life.

I know I have a limited amount of time before roller derby doesn't make sense in my life anymore, but while it's here I'm going to make the most of it.

21 roller derby truths

Because I like lists and I'm on a new supplement that feels a bit like Adderall, I don't know if I could actually write paragraphs that make sense. Instead, I'm going to list some "derby truths," aka things that I'm fairly certain most derby girls can relate to:

1. Roller derby is the best thing you will ever do for yourself
2. Some days of practice will really suck, no matter how great you get.
3. Some days of practice will be really awesome, no matter how bad you think you suck.
4. You do actually have to come and participate in practice to get better.
5. You do actually have to put in time outside of practice to get better.
6. You will always learn more when you shut your mouth.
7. No one wants to be your partner if you quit before the drill even begins. (#1 pet peeve of mine)
8. Yes, everyone is giving you the stink eye when you quit the drill to stretch.
9. Yes, you will fail/suck at something a thousand times before you finally get it/perfect it.
10. It really does take a year to have a good base understanding the game of roller derby.
11. Train your hamstrings and not just your quads if you want that low back pain to go away and your derby stance to be lower.
12. Your team/league has faith in you, that's why you're there. You owe it to them to work hard and prove that they were right to choose you.
13. No one outside of roller derby will understand why you are so obsessed with roller derby.
14. If you eat a cracker and a salad before practice, you will regret it. (Would you not put gas in your car before a road trip?)
15. If you eat a McDonald's value meal before practice, you will regret it. (Would you let half of the air out of your tires before a drive?)
16. Fifty people will show you how to do a skill before one of their explanations finally clicks.
17. Fresh meat: Listen to a vet's advice. They have dealt with every situation you have, and then some.
18. No one starts their derby career as Suzy Hotrod.
19. Eventually you will dream of hip checking people everywhere.
20. No matter how much you hate it, jamming will help you be a better derby player.
21. Derby is motherfucking awesome. (sorry family, but there were no synonyms in the thesaurus)

... annnnd, I'm spent. Feel free to add on below :)

Eat more, weigh less

Beware: This is one of those posts with a whole lotta calorie math and pseudo diet experimentation below. You've been warned.

I kind of feel like an idiot. I never hesitate on MyFitnessPal to tell someone they are not eating enough and that is why they're not losing weight. Yet, I'm still struggling with the whole eat more thing myself and have caused myself to plateau twice because of it.

When I first started this whole thing, MFP told me that I needed to eat 1570 calories per day to lose 2lbs per week and everything was going great. In fact, I was averaging 3lbs per week. As they say though, everything works for 6 weeks. I believe this is the main reason people quit their diets - they stop working. This is because your body gets acclimated to what you're doing. The bigger problem comes because most people (like me) think 'well obviously I need to eat less/exercise more to keep losing weight'. Fast forward and now you're one of those crazies eating 1200 calories per day, starving, angry, and not losing anything.

As I wrote in this post, I started eating back my exercise calories and had an immediate drop. I felt great and kept going. Well, I plateaued again almost immediately, even going up a pound or two despite never going over my calories. Keeping in mind the Diet Math post from a few days ago, I'm obviously not gaining real weight so what's up?

Once again I'm pretty certain the culprit is not eating enough and I was basically convinced after reading this post on the MFP boards that broke down how to calculate your body fat, basal metabolic rate or BMR (this how many calories your body burns in 24 hours just existing), and then your daily net calorie goal. If you're interested:

1. Visit http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/ 
2. Do the Military Body Fat Calc first (the Military BF calculator is accurate up to about 2%)
3. Use the body fat percentage to input into the BMR tool
4. Use the Katch McGardle BMR number to know your BMR
5. Add 200 calories to the BMR number and that is your net daily calorie goal
6. Never eat at or below BMR. 

When I plug my information in, I get 1597 calories as my BMR, add 200 and I'm around 1800, a good 400 more than I had been eating (which by the way was because MFP recalculated my calories to be 1300 at my weight for 2lbs of weight loss per day and I thought that sounded crazy). 

Because I hadn't lost anything after the 2lb drop early last week, I decided it was time to up my calories again to 1500 - yes, even though I had already calculated the numbers above. This was Sunday and shortly after making this decision we went on a 5 mile hike which according to several sources, burned approximately 1000 calories. That day I ate 2379 calories, a net of 1454 for the day and I was down .7lbs the next morning. 

Monday I had practice so I ate 1985 calories with a net of 1445 and lost almost 2lbs, .4lbs being "new" weight lost. 

Yesterday was a rest day and for some reason I was starving all day so I ended up going 153 calories over the projected 1800 to end up with 1952 for the day, and this morning I was exactly the same weight. My plan is to stick it out for this whole week at 1800 just to see how it goes and adjust next week if necessary. 

People who think losing weight is as easy as eating less have probably never needed to lose more than a few vanity pounds. It really takes dedication to work hard, eat less, and keep going even when the scale betrays you. As with anything worthwhile, it's a marathon, not a sprint and I don't plan on giving up.

Derby Confidence

If you stop and think about the diversity of women who play derby, you can't help but to be astounded. If your high school was anything like mine, the jocks were the jocks, the geeks were the geeks, and while one was occasionally also the other, it was usually the exception and not the rule.

Roller derby is nothing like high school. Derby manages to bring in women from all walks of life: the loners, the rockers, the shy girls, the jocks, and the beauty queens, and they all make great derby players. I credit this to what I call: derby confidence. Derby confidence is what allows a stay-at-home mom of 3 to lace up her skates and lay someone out on the track or someone who feels that they are socially awkward to be a fierce jammer.

Unfortunately derby confidence doesn't come easily and I think for some, it never happens at all. In my opinion, derby confidence is something that happens when you leave everything except derby at the door. When you lace up your skates determined to give every practice 110%. When you leave every excuse, every minor ache and pain, and your bad attitude off the track.

Derby confidence is what makes the big girl quick, the small girl tough, and the quiet girl a leader on the track and it all comes mainly from the willingness to be awesome at this incredible sport  -- and that is all you need. There will always be someone who thinks you're too new to try out for the All Stars or too slow to jam or too small to block well, but for every person who thinks that, there is one who is defying all of the "odds". Find that person your your league and learn from them. Emulate them during a tough drill or watch their style of hitting or juking for tips.

Of course this, like most things, is easier said than done. I still have a daily struggle to keep myself positive and focused. I get discouraged at least once per practice, but really make a concerted effort to keep my negative emotions in check and keep my confidence up. Last, but not least, you can also fake it til you make it. Practice exuding confidence and after a while, you'll start to feel it.

Now, go forth and kick ass.

Unexpected side effects of roller derby

Over the last week I've been thinking of the ways that roller derby has changed my life, more so the unexpected things. If you are "fresh meat" or you've yet to get involved with your local derby scene, some of these things may come as a shock to you. If you've been in the derby world awhile, I suspect you'll be nodding along as you read some of these.

1. Even if your weight does not change, all of your jeans are now too tight. You've put on muscle since you started playing derby and that's great, but guess what? I hope you like jeggings. Seriously, this doesn't happen to everyone, but there are a lot of girls who can no longer wear jeans. Period.
2. Your elbows and knees will now sweat during non-derby related exercise. This one is so weird to me, but I've asked around and apparently this is common. Lately I've noticed that after I finish my cardio, my knees and elbows are sweaty. Awesome, right? Who doesn't want to sweat more places?
3. Your entire concept of colors will change. You may not own one pink item of clothing or any pink accessories, but now you've been drafted onto the Powderpuff Super Pink Rollerdolls. You now love pink. All of your things will be pink. Pink is the only color that matters.
4. You finally use that calendar function on your smart phone. Once upon a time ago, I probably only had 3-4 events I needed to remember per month and they could easily be tracked via the whiteboard on the refrigerator. Now, the minute someone starts talking dates, I have to whip out Google calendar. "How about 8 Thursdays from next week, does that work?"
5. You own a shocking amount of Lycra. From DerbySkinz to workout pants to EZfit Booties, the amount of Lycra in your closet is reaching record setting levels. The good news, you can take a really small bag on any derby trips. The bad news, if you're me, so much of the Lycra is black so you can never find exactly what you're looking for in a hurry.

I'm sure there are a million more I am not thinking of, so there will probably be a part 2 to this. In the mean time, feel free to share some of yours in the comments.

Diet Math or Why I'm Not Upset That I Was Up This Morning

Yesterday would have been my 7th gym and/or practice day in row and I was totally game to go despite being sore everywhere. However, I'm baking a cake for 100 people due Saturday and needed to make a trip to the cake supply and grocery store. Then, I had a board meeting in the city. On top of all of that I need to bake brownies for Saturday's bout and get up super early to skate in the parade. Whew.

In light of the fact that I didn't have practice and I wasn't going to the gym, I figured it was ok if I was pretty light on the eating and would actually help me. I drank a ton of water and by the time I left at 6 o'clock for my meeting, had only eaten around 1000 calories. I left myself this ~400 calorie leeway because we have our meetings at a little pizza place and I wasn't sure if I would be hungry or not.

Fast forward and I didn't eat at the pizza place, but indulged in a few spoonfuls of cake batter and nibbles of extra cake. Since I didn't really know how to track this little cake spree, I just wrote off most of my remaining calories for the day.

This morning when I woke up, I was up around 2 lbs. Once upon a time ago, I would have flipped out and said 'f*ck this diet', but here is why I didn't:

My daily calories goal is 1400
Until 6pm I only ate 1000 calories and drank a ton of water
While I was baking, I ate (what I thought was) about 400 calories

First, it takes 3500 calories to gain one pound (and I "gained" 2). I'm fairly confident in my pre-cake calorie counting, but according to MFP, one Betty Crocker - French Vanilla Cupcake with no frosting is 120 calories. I would have had to eat about 30 cupcakes worth of cake mix just to reach 3500 calories, plus additional cupcakes to cover the deficit that is already included in my calories goal. The chances that this happened are slim to none.

So what did happen? Well I have two hypotheses. The first is that I've been a really crappy water drinker for the last two weeks (with the exception of practices and even then not so great) and yesterday I drank the hell out of some water. The second goes back to not eating enough. After considering how much cake batter/pieces I might have ate, I would say that it was no more than a cupcake and a half (approx 180 calories) and only put me at about 1180 for the day which put my body went into freakout mode again. Who knows, maybe it was a little of both. Either way, it is impossible that this is real weight.

I wrote this post because I know it can be so easy to get discouraged when the scale does not show all the effort you've been putting into losing weight and sometimes it's nice to see things in black or white. Weight loss is a numbers game so if you get discouraged, make sure you really look at your calories and habits to figure out what's going on. Listen to your body!

Practice like you mean it

Last night I was lucky enough to be able to co-train with one of my teammates. She is a vet who has been with the league since the beginning and captained my home team 4 out of the 6 years it has existed. Basically, she knows her shit and her practices are typically my favorites because I get a lot out of them. Last night, even though I was co-training, was no exception.

Our focus at practice was man-on-man aka offense. For some reason our league is all about the big D so we've been working to change that. We started off with a semi-tough warm-up, followed by 3 drills that focused on different parts of offensive pack movement: moving from the in or out of an opposing player and hitting them in the direction you just came from, movement within the pack to hit an opposing player anywhere in the pack, and distracting an opposing blocker to help your jammer. Then, we moved on to offensive pack scenarios, calisthenics, and stretching.

These were all drills we had done a million times in practice and so the goal was to not just go through the motions, but to think of each drill as if you are in a jam playing offense and not doing a drill. This is a mentality I have been trying really hard to sustain all the time and I wholeheartedly think it has made me a better skater. I don't just mean at practice, but at the gym too. When I'm slogging it out on the treadmill, I'm thinking, 'this is my speed lap'. When I am doing 3 minutes of death squats, I'm thinking about how I'm going to be immovable on the track.

Honestly, I see a lot of people calling it in at practice and that's fine I guess, but if you're there to get better and you aspire to have a pinky toes worth of Bonnie Thunders' skill, go to every practice like its the difference between being rostered in your next bout and warming the bench.

To weigh or not to weigh every day

I've been known to have a scale obsession or two. There was a time when someone put my scale in the trunk of their car so I couldn't weigh myself every day. It was really unhealthy, obviously. The scale and I did not have a good relationship and I would basically let that number determine how my day was going to go. If I was going to be happy that day, it was going to be because that number had gone down. If I was going to be a self loathing bitch face, it was because I gained.

Fast forward to the last 6-8 weeks and I don't know whats changed, but my scale and I are pals again despite the fact that I weigh myself every day. This time I feel like it is crucial to my success and has even helped me be  more accountable. First, who doesn't want to get up every morning and see that they are actively losing weight? It's instant feedback, and for an impatient control freak like me, it works.

Before anyone jumps on my case with a thousand reasons why you shouldn't weigh yourself every day, let me say that I am not telling everyone they should do it. We all know our personalities and can make this choice for ourselves. However, if you are planning to track this way, let me suggest some guidelines:

1. Stop eating before the same time every night.   I know there is a lot of controversy in the diet world about whether it makes a bit of difference and I say it doesn't, but for my purposes it makes sense. My logic is that if you don't eat after a certain point every night, by morning your body has had a chance to "reset". For me, I don't eat after practice and try not to eat after 9 on normal nights. Sometimes I don't always get all of my calories in before practice and HAVE to eat afterwards, but ideally I don't.
2. Weigh yourself upon waking, after you use the bathroom.  Ok, you've been sleeping for 8 (hopefully) hours and chances are your body has digested all the food you ate yesterday. Get up, do your morning business, and hop on the scale. Do not eat. Do not drink. Do not pass GO... Sorry, anyway this part is super important. Ever heard the saying "a pints a pound the world around"? It basically means that 16oz is a pound (duh, right?), but think of that in terms of food. If you get up and have a large coffee, you know weigh 1 pound more than when you woke up this morning.
3. Never ever weigh yourself more than once a day.  Some would say that weighing yourself every day is obsessive and I disagree, but weighing yourself multiple times a day is just crazy. Besides, chances are that you are going to eat or drink during the day and if you read number 2, that's not a great thing for weigh-ins.

Obviously not every weigh in can be a loss, but I know that I have had many more days in the losing column than that gaining column because I know I am going to face the scale in the morning. Weighing myself every day helped me catch my last plateau and fix it quickly. Also, I typically know in advance if I can expect to see a gain, especially if I ate things high in sodium the day before. I think this is an advantage over weekly weighing because I could have a great week nutrition and exercise wise, eat a bunch of sushi the night before and then be up on the scale the next day and then I feel like I didn't make any progress that whole week. To me, that is much more discouraging.

P.S. Down another .8lbs this morning, 3.2 for the week :) I love eating more!

The real work has begun

When you first get the roller derby bug and strap on skates for the first time in a decade or more, I think you assume that the toughest part is going to be learning to skate again and all of those nifty skills there seem to be an infinite number of. If, like me, you made this assumption, you would be wrong.

When I first started skating, I couldn't do a crossover without methodically planning it out and working up courage for 5 minutes first, but in no time it wasn't even something I had to think about. Most of my skills progressed like this. Some things are still harder on one side than the other and some skills definitely need some work, but I can at least do them.

Next, you have to figure out how to put it all together. After all, it doesn't matter if you can hockey swerve all across the track and stop on a dime, but if you don't know how to use that swerve to your advantage in a jam, what good is it? All of those lateral movement drills weren't just to teach you to move from side to side, they were so that you could be an effective derby player, even at a standstill - which let me tell you if you don't know, is damn hard.

Not only do you have to know when to use all of these skills, but you need to execute at pack speed. This is where I am. This is where I think the hard part sets in. Not that I ever did, but even if I wanted to I couldn't blame my newness on letting the opposing jammer up the inside line or not getting with my partner to keep a goat or not being able to make a timely, fluid switch from defense to offense.

Once upon a time ago I used to go into practice just hoping that I could keep up, that I could do the drills. Now every drill, every practice is about getting the most out of it. Getting better, faster, hitting harder, being more precise. I want to be a player that my teammates are glad they are lining up against and not a liability. I want people to look at me as an asset on the track.

Dare I say it... I want to be feared on the track. Maybe that's a little vain, but from vanity comes confidence and almost nothing good happens without that.

Laissez les bon temps roulez!

Little Victories

Yesterday was a non-practice day which meant it was a "heavy" gym day for me (running and upper or lower body). I've tried running on practice days in the past and it usually meant a not so great practice. Of course, since I recently realized my nutrition was all out of whack, I could have easily been trying to practice on 500 calories or something.

Eating was great in the morning, though maybe a little carb heavy and I felt good pre-workout. Today I wanted to switch up my run in case my body was starting to get used to what I had been doing (Personal Running Trainer on iPhone), so I winged a little HIIT.

I started with a 3 minute warm-up walk, then bumped up to a 2 minute jog (5.5-6mph), followed by a 20-30 second sprint (about 8.5), then drop down to 3.0 to lower my heart rate a bit before I repeated the jog/sprint again for a total of 25 minutes. My goal was to keep my body guessing and vary my heart rate as much as possible. Much to my disbelief, I actually enjoyed this workout and felt damn good afterward.

After cardio came lower body: walking lunges, 3 minutes of squat and holds (20 seconds squatting/10 second hold while squatting), and hip thrusts. My legs are tight today, but I probably could have done a little more.

Like I said, my workout was good, but what I was really happy about were my little victories:

#1) My heart is getting healthier, ya'll! It used to be nothing for me to get my heart rate up. A very short jog could get my heart rate up to 199 with no problem, but I realized yesterday that the highest my HR got up to after sprinting was 176.

#2) Yesterday I finished a mile right at 10 minutes! As I mentioned a few posts ago, I hate the shit out of running, but it is undeniably good for me. Yesterday after incorporating sprints, I made that mile my bitch.

BONUS #3) This morning I was down another .4lbs. I don't know why, but at first I was kind of discouraged by this, but then I remembered that I have lost 2.4 lbs in 2 days and my goal is only to lose 2lbs per week. I'm losing weight and I'm not starving myself!!!

Every day I feel a little change and a little better. It's working!

Keep on keeping on, people :)

Great practice, great weigh-in

The initial verdict: IT WORKS! 

It has only been 24 hours since I devised my new eating plan, but I already feel really good about it. Yesterday I added my practice/exercise calories into MFP in the afternoon so I would know what my food goal was. It felt like I ate A LOT - and most would not fall into the "healthy" category, but a calorie is a calorie in my book - and I stayed within my range and ate all of my calories before I left for practice at 6pm.

Sometimes I get worried that if I eat too much before practice, I will feel bogged down or get queasy. Unfortunately I think that this has led me to eat way too little before practice and get sick from not enough food energy way too often. Yesterday I was careful to stretch out what I ate and didn't eat a lot of anything at any one time. I also left about an hour between the last thing I ate, and practice.

So how did I feel? Great! I didn't feel laggy or worn down. I had energy the whole practice and didn't even flinch when I got sent in as a jammer on the last jam of the night after an hour of practice beforehand. I was the first out of the pack, scored 10+ points, and didn't even collapse when I came off the track. I call that success.

The icing on the cake was when I got up this morning I weighed 2 pounds less than yesterday morning! And ok, it's important to note that I had "gained" 2 pounds during this whole plateau situation, but the fact that it's gone, overnight, from eating more is A-OK as far as I am concerned.

For those of you who want the breakdown calorie-wise:

My regular food goal with no exercise is 1450 calories.
My estimated exercise expenditure was 538 calories.
The actual number of calories consumed was 1902 calories.
My net calories (food - exercise) aka the only calories that count was 1364.

And I got to eat ALL THAT FOOD!

Thus far, I am sold. More updates to come!

That dirty 'P' word

I think it's here and I'm not very happy about it. My first (and hopefully only?) plateau.

I have been hovering at the same weight for almost 2 weeks now and I'm doing a good job of not getting frustrated, but now it's time for some action. This morning I spent a good hour searching the MyFitnessPal community about plateaus and "eating back" my exercise calories. I also compared my net calories (the difference between what eat and what I expend exercising) to my weight loss progress and the results were telling (at least I hope so).

Here's what I found: when I eat the calories that MFP tells me to and I do not exercise, I lose weight. When I exercise a lot and do not "eat back" some of those calories, I stall. This sounds like great news, right? I get to eat more! And eating is my favorite! But, no. I'm scared shitless. Eating is how I got into this mess. I know I need to make a change though and after reading this post, eating more is making a lot more sense.

So here's the plan:

1. Never let my net calories drop below 1200 and try to keep them near my daily calorie goal (which is higher)
2. "Eat back" my exercise calories before practice and workouts (Note: I normally don't eat after practice and I think this works well for me, but I know a lot of times I am putting myself way under 1000 net cals after practice. Also, I only put in half of my practice time as exercise, so if practice is 2 hours, I am only putting in 45 mins of skating as exercise because I think MFP grossly overestimates exercise.)
3. Replace more carbohydrate calories with protein calories

I think my plan sounds simple enough, but see myself having the most issues with number 3. I really just don't like meat that much anymore and haven't found a lot of good protein sources that I can eat on a regular basis. I have to work harder on that.

I'm going to give this one solid week and revisit and make adjustments if necessary. Wish me luck!

Body vs. Mind

The scale has confirmed, every day, that I have lost weight and that I continue to lose weight. My brain however, is in denial. My brain refuses to believe that my arms must be getting smaller even though my elbow pads are slipping off. Even though my legs don't have a muffin top above my knee pads anymore. Even though the skirt I bought 2 weeks ago was really snug and now fits comfortably.

My body has this "comfortable fat zone" that has been the low end of my weight for a long time. I've dipped below that number a few times, but typically only for a day or two before I bounce back up again. (Note: The one exception would be when I was 25 and looking to get away from my ex and basically starved myself about 20lbs below the "comfortable fat zone" only to gain it back 6 months later - and some.)  I would say the number of times that I have hit that weight, bounced up, back down, up.. has to be somewhere in the 1000 range.

This time I have stayed below that mark for a full week - and I know this doesn't sound like much, but for me it's huge! It's huge because I am doing it the right way. I feel good about myself and motivated. I know that if I keep sticking to what I am doing, it will keep working. I'm proud of what I have achieved and that makes the long road ahead much less daunting.