down55

before and after

2005-09-30T19:08:00.000-07:00

Yep.

Itchy again

2005-07-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

Interesting realization yesterday. The heat makes me less itchy. Ok. I know this makes no sense. But yesterday afternoon at work I got all itchy. As soon as I walked into the parking lot (which is like a sauna). No itching at all. All the way home, not itchy. As soon as I walked into the air conditioned building. Itchy. But it gets more interesting. Last night I was itchy. So I put an extra blanket on. It was a fairly warm blanket. Wool. Itching gone. I assumed the itchiness was related to the heat because it started the week it was insanely hot and humid every day. But I've never had this sort of problem with heat and humidity (and I lived in Japan one summer in the hottest summer they'd had in 10 years). Perhaps it isn't the heat that is causing my problem, but the air conditioners on full blast. The last time in my life where I was in heavily air conditioned buildings for for than three or four hours at a time was... Not at law school. I was rarely in the building for more than two hours at a time. Not when I was working for an airline. The airport I worked at had too many windows. It was impossible to cool. Not when I was working at a bookstore. I rarely had shifts over four ours. Not when I was living in Japan. I often taught at locations other than the school, and so was not consistently in air conditioned locations. Not in South America. Did they even have air conditioners there? Undergrad. Well maybe if I had ever gone to class I would have spent time in air conditioned rooms. Hmm. Maybe in high school when I worked at my dad's office during summer. But even then, I would often end up with tasks in the un airconditioned part of the facility. I have never in my adult life consistently worked in a heavily air conditioned place.

Not so itchy

2005-07-19T07:08:00.000-07:00

I'm not as itchy. Actually, at the moment I'm not itchy at all. I didn't ride to work yesterday (Monday). And I switched back to cooperating sunscreen. I lost three pounds last week in spite of consuming just over 2000 calories a day on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Thursday and Friday I rode my bike to work and back home, so I burned more calories than I consumed, even with the increased amount. Sunday I spent an hour on the treadmill, and so again burned more calories than I consumed, even if not by that much. I think I might alternate how many calories I consume on a daily basis between 2000 and 1600. With all the riding I do, consuming 1600 just isn't enough if I do it for several days in a row. Even at 600 calories per hour average, with the riding I do, I'm burning 1500 calories a day just riding. If I'm only eating 1600 a day, I just don't have any energy to ride and I get cranky. The stress factor may have contributed to the skin problem. My body gets rather unhappy when I don't feed it enough. No concerns about me ever becoming anorexic. Ok. So yesterday was a 2000 calorie day. So today can be a 1600 calorie day. Breakfast was a bagel. That had something like a 320 calories. Whoever invented bagels was evil. But I am laying off the soy protein for a couple of days. Part of me wonders if that was part of the skin problem. I'd have the soy protein in my drink, and then I started eating tofu on a daily basis. My body is pretty sensitive to anything in extreme amounts like that. Lunch is going to be a subway sandwich. I was going to get he veggie burger, but it probably has soy in it. I guess I'll just get a cheese sandwich. Maybe I'll just go to the deli down stairs. That will probably be about 400-550 calories. Dinner. What am I going to have for dinner. What can I eat that is a change from what I usually eat. Hmmm. If I rule out tofu and black beans. Well that is a problem because those are two of my basic staples. I had mac and cheese last night. And the night before that too. I could get a pizza. The place across the street has pretty good pizza. That would take care of lunch tomorrow too. But I'll probably get pizza when my mom comes to visit. I may have to try one of the Indian restaurants.

Itchy

2005-07-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

I itch. I'm sure the four new mosquito bites don't help. I don't know why I itch. It isn't as bad as when I was using the sunscreen that made me itch. So that problem of my entire body itching is gone. It could be eating so much salsa/spicy food. I once had a reaction to peperoncinis (i ate a whole lot of them). Or at least I think that was what the reaction was to. Unfortunately, I also had a new hair stylist, was using new hair products and starting a new job at the time and so can't pinpoint exactly what caused me to break out in hives. I did notice that I appear to be eating spicy things with disturbing frequency. It could be the humidity. Last week it rained three of the days and was unbelievably humid the rest of the days (might as well have been raining). Plus, I was using a new sunscreen (banana boat sport 30 extra). It claims it won't sweat away. However, what it effectively does is prevent the sweat from evaporating. Took me a couple of days to catch on to this (because it was so humid). But on Thursday it was fairly cloudy so I put sunscreen on my arms but not my legs and noticed that my arms were rediculously sweaty while my legs weren't. On Friday it was super cloudy so I put screen on my hands but not my arms. My hands were super sweaty while my arms weren't sweaty at all. This strikes me as being somewhat dangerous. Sweat cools the body by evaporating. It is the evaporating action that actually cools the skin. If the sun screen somehow interferes with that, doesn't that keep the body from cooling itself? Isn't that why exercising in the humidity is so much harder on the body in the first place? So it could be the sunscreen causing me to itch, although I'm itching on my upper back where I specifically did not put sunscreen at all last week in an attempt to give my skin a break from the sun by wearing shirts with sleeves. It could have been the shirts with sleeves. My skin isn't used to haveing material rubbing against it. The extra material in combination with the humidity could have cause the problem. The problem could be caused by losing weight. As I consume fewer calories than I burn, I'm using up fat cells. Could be something stored in the fat cells that is causing me to itch. My period was three days late, so it could be a hormonal imbalance that is making my skin more sensitive to irritants ( I was unbelievably cranky for nearly an entire week). It could be nothing more than my body dealing with the four bug bites I have. If enough of what makes the bites swell up got into my blood stream, it could cause irritation in other places. Because of all the rain, on some parts of the train, the trees are hanging low. Could be that I'm allergic to one of them and have a reaction when it brushes me when I duck to avoiding geting hit in the face with a branch. And it could be nothing more than sweating an unusually large amount due to the humidity.

2005-07-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

So much for going under. My target was 390. My original amount was 490. I was well over. First, I think I over estimated the calories in beans. I looked at the bean calorie content. The entire can has 380 calories. So it is not possible to get 300 in one meal and 200 in the second if they are all from the same can. I think my miscalculations caused me to get less protein than I needed. Anyway, last night I ate the entire block of tofu. 500 calories. Plus it was fried in some olive oil, so about 580 calories really. I also had two rolls at 140 each plus about 100 calories of cheese with that. A total of 880 just for dinner. 390 over what my target was. I was very full. But I think I needed the extra calories. Consuming fewer calories is starting to take its toll on my body. I was really dragging on my way home. I haven't been that tired in quite awhile. Going 400 calories over every once in a while is ok. So on to today. 300 calories for my morning drink (put less pineapple in it). 100 calories for my morning banana. Lunch is supposed to be blackbeans and cheese but I think I might go out, so that is a wild card. Dinner. Well, I suppose dinner will depend on whether I go out to lunch or not. Lets see. If I don't take lunch till 1, then I don't have to be back till 2. I can have my snack at 4 and be ready to ride by six. On the other hand, it does seem a shame to waste the food I brought for lunch if I go out. Hmm. Decisions decisions

A bit over

2005-07-14T12:44:00.000-07:00

Trader Joes had ridiculously long lines last night (over 10 people in each line (when the manager got up to the front he said "oh shit" and then got on the speaker and said "I need everyone wearing a trader joe's shirt up to the front to open." They opened three more registers and added some baggers and the lines then moved faster. But by the time I got home, I was too lazy to make tofu. So I had my old fall back favorite of blackbean nachos. Bout 200 for the beans, another 70 for the cheese, 50 for a dab of guacamole, and an ear of corn. Corn seems to range from 60-83 calories. I'll go with 60 since it was a small ear and I cut the kernels off but somehow managed to not cut deep enough. And a couple of carrots. And some chips at 140 calories. That puts me at 520 which is over where I wanted to be. But it was the corn that put me over. By 120. Bummer. Oh well. On to today. 330 for breakfast. Banana. 100. Blackbeans 150. Cheese 50. Roll plus cheese 200. Second roll plus cheese 280 (bigger roll). That leaves me with 490. I'll go 100 under since I was 100 over yesterday and go for a light dinner at 390. Tofu, 250 and some very small amount of carb. Like a roll at 140. I like rolls.

Moldy tortillas

2005-07-13T07:02:00.000-07:00

Well the tortillas didn't work out. Apparently I bought them when I first got to DC, which was over 8 weeks ago. They were moldy. So I added extra beans and some guacamole. Today's meal plan. Typical morning drink of approx 350 calories. My morning snack is an organic banana. I have no idea how many calories a banana has. Ok. According to a random website,e they have about 100. So that is 450. Bean medley for lunch. You know, I'm starting to realize that I tend to eat the exact same things over and over. I need to work on adding variety to my diet. I'll estimate lunch at about 450. Plus an apple. About 50 calories. Total of 500. Afternoon snack of Cheese on a Roll. Probably about 250. Out of 1600, that leaves me 400 for dinner. Well, that is more than the past couple days. Ok. I'll go for tofu (which I have to go buy because I'm out). That is about 200. Add a cup of brown rice for 215 calories. Ok. I'm not actually going to eat an entire cup of brown rice. I just don't like rice that much. Hmm. Maybe I'll have an apple as dessert. That would work.
And yes, for the record, I did ride my bike into work this morning even though it is so humid that I look like I just got out of the shower by the time I get to work (for the third brutal consecutive day). (note, I shower at the fitness center in the building before I go up to my office).

Cookie day

2005-07-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

Apparently today is cookie day. I love cookies. The EEOC had cookies at its meeting. The NLRB office of inspector general had cookies at its meeting. I really wanted a cookie. Ok, calculation for the day. Breakfast drink, 380. And I actually finished it this morning unlike Yesterday and Friday. Lunch was half a block of tofu at 250 plus seasoning, bout 50. so 300 plus a cheese on a roll(I forgot to make rice last night and I need some carbs). The Roll probably had about 180. I'd place the cheese at about 70. So 550. so that is 930. My morning snack was a shockingly tasty organic red apple. Small. Probably about 80. That puts me at 1010. My afternoon snack was also a roll with cheese. Larger than what I'd normally eat. Probably a total of about 280. So a total of 1290. On my 1600 calorie allotment, that leaves a whopping 310 for dinner. Ok. Admittedly that isn't much. But at the same time, I did have a rather heavy snack, so I'm not particularly hungry. In evaluating the calories content, I can see why the low carb diet works. Most of my calories come from carbs, and those calories rack up quickly without much satisfaction. Ok. Dinner. Two tortillas (60 calories each) with refried beans (200 calories), lettuce (nominal) salsa (nominal) and cheese (50). That puts me 50 calories over. I can live with that.

Cupcakes and brownies

2005-07-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

As if it wasn't bad enough that I am hungry because I am readjusting my calorie intake, my roommate comes home today with cupcakes and brownies. And not just one or two. Two large containers of them. It was her last day volunteering at the hospital. I love sugar. I'm a sugar addict. I gave up sugar (for the most part) for my ten weeks in DC. I ate ice cream when my friend came to visit. I had a piece of pie at a 4th of july BBQ, and I cracked once and bought a candybar. That is it. That is the only junk food I have had since May 13th. I love sugar. I crave sugar. I always have. (on a side note, at this very minute, my roommate's boyfriend is barking at the cat. No joke). But I resisted the brownies and cupcakes and ate an organic carrot instead. I am not having fun. Actually I am. But I really really want a brownie.

Back to being neurotic

2005-07-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

So in spite of riding my bike to work and back each day, a 36 mile round trip commute every day for the past seven weeks and adding two extra work outs a week, I've lost a total of 2 pounds this summer. Admittedly, I did drop a clothing size, which tells me I've gained some muscle, but still. The results have been disappointing. It means I'm consuming more calories than I think I am. So it is back to neurotically counting calories to figure out where the extra ones are coming from. I hate this. I am not neurotic and it is against my personality to have to be this obsessive. Here we go again. Breakfast was my protein drink. 130 calories for the protein, 100 calories for the pineapple, and about 120-150 calories for the OJ. -> 350 - 370 calories. Mid morning snack. Usually it is a piece of fruit, but I was out of fruit this morning, so it was a couple of pieces of cheese. Maybe 80 calories. Lunch was a blackbean medley (one of my favorites). Estimated around 550 calories. 3pm is my afternoon snack. Today it is a cheese sandwich. Probably around 180 calories (it's a very small sandwich). If my target is around 1600 daily calories, that leaves 440 calories for dinner. Half a block of tofu for protein would be around 175. Toss in some carrots which are nominal in calories so they don't count. And 265 leaves about 1 serving of whole wheat pasta or brown rice for my carbs. I can't believe people get addicted to this obsessive need to control food. I am not having fun.

Dr. Phill

2005-07-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

Last week I was browsing Dr. Phill's website. I don't remember why. And I came across a section on bad habits. It referred to anything. Something there really struck me. If you're engaging in a bad habit, you're getting something out of it. Whether it is overeating, or watching too much TV or overspending. If you weren't getting anything at all out of it, then you wouldn't be doing it. And furthermore, the key to kicking the habit is to figure out what it is that you're getting out of it and find some other way to get that. For over eating, the payoff may be entertainment or fulfillment. So as long as you put yourself in a place where you're sitting in an empty house, with nothing to do but eat, you're going to overeat because willpower is fickle. He's right. Once I thought about it, I do get a payoff from overeating. And subconsciously, I eliminated some of those back in October, which I why I was able to lose the 55 pounds. But dropping the last 20 hasn't been so easy, because I still eat more than I should, for a variety of reasons.

first week with clipless pedals

2005-07-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

The week went fairly well. Well, except for falling off my bike twice yesterday. It was raining, and I just get no traction in the rain. And getting eaten alive by mosquitoes (made the itching from the sunscreen pale in comparison). Oh, and having a bug fly into my eye on Thursday. It got stuck in the corner of my eye and actually stung me. That was definitely not fun. Getting up hills is much easier, if more tiring. And today, my butt is sore. Apparently, pedaling with clipless pedals uses different muscles than pedaling with toe-clips. Have I mentioned that there are an amazing number of hot guys in DC? And that most of them appear to run/bike on the bike paths?

clipless pedals

2005-07-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

I just bought and installed clipless pedals. I'll go try them out tomorrow. It was far easier than I thought it would be. So is clipping in and out. Now all I have to do is make the final adjustments to my cleats and tighten them down well. So excited.

new sunscreen

2005-07-02T19:22:00.000-07:00

I usually wear coppertone. But I've gotten irritated with them because when I get through half of the bottle, it separates and gets all greasy. This had happened before, but I always assumed that it was because I'd had the sunscreen so long. But it in this case, it happened like a week and a half after I bought it. So I figured I'd try different kinds. I've been using the CVS brand. I mean, sunscreen is sunscreen right? But lately my skin has been itchy. It is driving me nuts. Apparently sunscreen isn't just sunscreen. Perhaps if you ust use it occasionally, it might be fine. but I apply it right before I leave to ride to work and right before I leave to ride home. So even though I'm only wearing it for a little over an hour before I shower, I'm all itchy. I don't want to go back to coppertone becuase I don't think a product should totally degrade once you've gotten half way through it. I'll try banana boat next.

hitch hiker

2005-07-02T19:17:00.000-07:00

I picked up a hitch hiker on my bike last Wednesday. I was going up a hill when I noticed it. A bright red ladybug on my reflector. I believe it was stuck. Couldn't fly off with the wind going by. I wasn't about to stop while going up the hill, so it stayed on my reflector for quite a while. When I finally got up to the top of the hill, I pulled off the bike path, and as soon as I stopped, and nudged it a bit, it flew away.

light day

2005-05-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

It was a gorgeous day today. A shame that they have to have two right in a row. A perfect day for riding. But I decided togive my body a break. Still went to the gym. Spent about 12 minutes on the elliptical to warm up, did not upper body weight training for about 20 minutesand then used the machine where you pedal with your arms for about 15 minutes. Food wise was ok too. Did my protein drink for breakfast (130 calories from the protein powder,bout 50 from the frozen pineapple and bout 100 from the orange juice, maybe 80 from the banana). Definitely don't like the frozen peaches as much as the frozen pineapple. Such a shame that trader joes doesn't appear to carry the frozen pineapple anymore. Lunch was blackbean medley with brown rice. For a midday snack I had about 2 cups of my favorite dried cereal. That was a bit high calorie since each cup has 180 calories, and some black olives (love black olives). Probably about 250 calories worth, and some orange juice (bout 200 calories worth). Then for dinner I had refried beans (bout 200 calories) 2 corn tortillas (60 calories each), some lettuce and grated cheddar cheese, and about a third of a block of tofu (just under 200 calories) cooked in about 100 calories worth of olive oil. Yeah, my snack was my biggest calorie meal of the day. I might have to redefine my definition of snack. All in all though, I am ok with the calorie content for the day. 2040 ish. Plus I'm baking an apple right now, so about 2100. I'm sort of torn. On one hand, I know I need extra calories if I am going to go on 5 hour bike rides. and I spend between 60 and 90 minutes at the gym 6 days a week. And I work out hard, am drenched in sweat by about 15 minutes into the work out generally. On the other hand, I do want to lose weight and would prefer to stick to my 1500 a day. In retrospect, I could have skipped either the orange juice or the olives and still been within my range. Or I could have skipped the second cup of cereal. But it is high protein cereal with over 8 grams of protein per serving. I can't really figure out how to get a variety of food with only 1500 calories a day to work with. If I had had a salad with lunch, I probably wouldn't have felt the need to eat such a large snack. but on the other hand the cereal provided some protein which I certainly need build strength. Just don't know. But it feels right. So I'm ok with it.

70miles

2005-05-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

Didn't go to the gym today. But I rode 70 miles on my bicycle. And I bypassed the cookies at the rest stop and had an apple instead. Had a cookie and a half with lunch. Forgot my protein drink this morning. Left it sitting on the counter. Had a banana muffin and an orange instead. But I limited to one banana muffin. For lunch I had a roasted veggie and cheese sandwhich on thick pieces of homemade bread. it was really good. I also had black eyed peas and pasta salad. When I got back from the ride I was really hungry. Half an eggless egg sandwhich, a big bowl of chili, a very small piece (sliver) of cheesecake and a lot of veggies a couple of which i dipped into spinach, dip. And a vegan chocolate chip cookie. I bypassed the chips, banana nuffins, donuts, more cheesecake, chocolate, and twislers. I did well.

May 6

2005-05-06T23:06:00.000-07:00

Other than the fact tha I didn't get up until noon today, things went well. Had my protein drink for breakfast. I had refried beans on tortillas with hot sauce for lunch (one of my favorites. something about beans on corn tortillas). And then for dinner I had Blackbeans with sauteed onions, sun dried tomatos, chopped walnuts, and balsamic vinegar with brown rice (another of my favorites )on tortillas and a mini salad. Spent an hour at the gym on the treadmill. This was my second consecutive day on the treadmill. Usually I only do the treadmill every third day. But I didn't want to bike because I'm going on a 70 mile bike ride tomorrow.

side note

2005-05-02T23:02:00.000-07:00

I had difficulty making friends here. Not a problem I've generally had. I noticed that people were edgy around me from the time I met them. I figured whatever it was that was keeping people from being friendly had to be in my appearance because it was there when I first met people, generally before I even opened my mouth. Since this was the first time in my life I have had this problem, I assumed it was my weight. People are very weight sensitive here. Far more so than people in California. It was a logical connection. But no. That wasn't it. Nope. They just don't like me.

Live and learn.
I can appreciate the humor in having my assumption be so completely dead wrong.

didn't quite get there.

2005-05-02T22:41:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to be down to 145 by my Birthday. I didn't quite make it. I did make progress though. I started at 220 pounds.
How I got there
I'm 5 foot 7. Needless to say, I was chunky. How did I end up at 220? A combination of factors. I lived in Japan for 9 months. There wasn't much vegetarian food available. I put on about 35 pounds. Lots of white rice. Stressful job. Couldn't quite figure out how to join a gym. Came back to the US. Lost 20 pounds and got a job working for Southwest Airlines. My shift started at 415am. While it was awesome to get off work at 1245pm every day, this meant that I got up at 330 in the morning, ate breakfast at 3:45 am. Lunch around 6:30am. mid afternoon snack at about 9:30 am. And dinner when I got home at 1pm. This would have been fine. But what would normally happen would be that I would take a nap till about 3 and then get up. Then dinner would be around 6pm. A snack around 9pm. Then I'd get up and do it again.

Sometimes I would eat at work to stay awake. I loved working there, but my job could be boring at times. And 14 hours into a 16 hour day, I couldn't identify someone who had spent several minutes at my counter even it he/she had walked away from my counter 30 seconds ago. I put on a few pounds, but nothing major. Then I got into a car accident.

That is where I really put on the pounds. I was injured. Couldn't exercise. Didn't do anything but work and sleep. This defeated the entire purpose of working for an airline (which is to travel and have fun). So I ate and slept more. Eventually I got better and could exercise. But my fate had been sealed. I had decided to go to law school. Now see, most people in need of legal services would simply hire a lawyer. I never was one to take the easy path.

So then one day I found myself in law school in the Midwest. I'm from the west coast. I had never even owned a winter coat and I certainly wasn't prepared to live somewhere that is covered in snow for six months of the year.

Nor was I prepared for law school. Undergraduate had been fun. I assumed law school would be as well. Live and learn.

So the pounds added up.

And I ended up at 220. I decided that was an unreasonable weight and took up cycling over summer. Took off 25 pounds. 195. I was well on my way.

Then school started again. Mid October I realized that I was back up to 216. So I joined a gym. And I have been there for at least an hour a day, at least six days a week since then (with the exception of winter break when I was on the west coast). Amazing. Going to the gym daily and cutting out junkfood and the pounds came off. Fairly easily. And I before I knew it, I weighed 160.

Then finals weeks happened. 7 classes was WAY too many. Two papers, and three in class finals down. One in class final and one take home final left. I weigh 165. Which although better than 220 is not the 145 I wanted to be at by May. Although I will admit, I thoroughly enjoyed all the junk food I've eaten in the past couple of weeks.