Never enough

28 pounds and 6 months
Photo (left) courtesy of James Calder Photography

I'm still riding pretty high on this season's victory, but looming ever closer are thoughts about next season and what part I will play. Of course, I want to be faster, stronger, and a more dependable partner on the track. I want to be thinner and healthier. I want to juke better, plow on a dime, be aware of everything on the track...

In short, I want to be awesome. You know, like every other derby girl out there.

To date I've lost 28 pounds and have been bobbing at this same weight for a couple weeks now. I feel like I have come so far and yet also like I've hardly made any progress. I wonder if it's common to feel simultaneously proud of yourself and frustrated that you haven't gotten farther?

The fact that I feel like I can never be content has been both a blessing and a curse in my life. In relationships I've been accused of never being happy, but I swear that's not the case. It's more like a need, a necessity, to do better, have better, be better. The fear that someone is nipping at my heels, ready to eclipse my success or that someone doesn't trust my ability to do something feels like it may as well be fatal sometimes. The good part that comes from this sense of urgency is that I have become good at a lot of things and been a "go-to" person in many parts of my life.

In a way, it feels like now is the real start of my derby career. Most of the newbie-ness is gone and I can no longer use the excuse that I am a rookie. For me it's not I will I be better next season, but how much better will I be? I guess time will tell. Until then, full speed ahead!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Roadblock

Right now my mind is waging a dangerous war on itself. On one side, there is Optimistic Losing Weight Me and on the other, Fat Negative Me. Fat Negative Me is one loud-mouthed bitch and all she does is run her mouth about how I will never sustain this weight loss. It's been too easy! I'm going to gain it all back!

Sadly, Optimistic Losing Weight me isn't much of a shit-talker. Frankly, she's a pussy. She's in the corner, doe-eyed, looking scared. She tries to be confident, but you can tell that she is wondering if it's all going to be short-lived too.

I have a bad habit of starting things I don't finish or being relatively good at something in the beginning and not seeing it through because, hey I already proved I can do it if I really want to. Right now, I'm standing at at that fork again. I have every intention of finishing this journey, but damn if I'm not scared I will screw it up again.

As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, one day at a time.

19 down...

... and 31 to go until my first goal. And looking at my 'roller derby saved my soul' booty ECDX countdown, I am down to 88 days. Let's look at the stats, shall we?

So far, I have lost 19 lbs in 31 days so that is an average of .61 lbs per day. At this rate I will only lose 54 more lbs in 88 days (don't I wish). To meet my goal, I only need to lose an average of .35 lbs/day or 2.5 lbs per week.

Okay, so I say I "only" need to lose 2.5 lbs per week, but the reality is that that is A LOT. I've been cruising right along so there could easily be a plateau in my future. I hope not!

While I am checking in, here is a recap of what has and has not worked in the last 31 days:

What has worked:

• MyFitnessPal on my iPhone - This has been a godsend! Everything is so simple to enter - I mean hello!, you can scan the barcode on foods.
• Jogging with help from Personal Running Trainer on my iPhone - Jogging, I still hate your face, but you're so good for my butt! I have never been a good runner, not even when I was thin all through elementary, middle, and high school. I'm pretty sure I have NEVER continuously jogged a mile, but I stumbled across this program on my phone that let's me listen to MY music and tells me when to walk or jog, I'll be doing it in no time. Plus, my endurance has made marked improvements so far.
• Eating at home - I love to eat. Love it. But it is so easy to rack up calories the second you leave your house. I'm not a good planner so I'm not going to sit hear preaching at you to pack your every meal everywhere, but eat at home as much as you can and it will help.
• Not drinking - I wasn't a huge drinker before, but I would have some wine a couple times a week. I realized that I would rather eat those calories than drink them.
• No sugar. See my previous post, but sugar just makes me want to eat everything. I haven't gone all Atkins or anything, I still eat bread, just no cookies, brownies, ice cream, etc.
• Eating an early dinner (no later than 7) and only having one healthy snack after then if I really need it. (Note: This works for me because I weigh myself every morning so I feel like I am giving my body a chance to reset overnight and give an accurate weight).

What has NOT worked:

• NOT tracking my food - I had one not so great week where I didn't track and I gained. I was lucky to catch myself and get back on track without damaging my bottom line (pun intended).
• 6 small meals - I'm sure everyone has heard that they should eat 6 small meals to keep their metabolism up, not get hungry, etc., and I know a lot of people who this works for, but it does not work for me. I do best on 3 squares and 1-2 snacks. On any given day I spend about 1/5 of my calories on breakfast, 1/5 on lunch, 2/5 on dinner, and 1/5 on snacks (sometimes lunch and dinner are switched). This ratio seems to work well for me.

Overall I feel really good about my progress, but today I sit at a weight that is tough for me. It seems to be the weight where my body gets comfortable and doesn't want to budge. In fact, I've been at this weight 'point' something for a few days until hitting point zero today. I've broken below it many, many, many times, but in my adult life have not stayed under for more than 6 months once when I was 25. I feel different this time though. My head is in a different place and I have my fingers crossed for tomorrow!