Gently Taking the Bull by the Horns

I'm standing on the edge of 2015 looking into the fog, trying to spot any clues of what the year might hold.

My ability to read the future has never been particularly strong so there is no point assuming that it will work this time.

And, to be honest, I prefer to think that life is what you make of it rather than what it makes of you. Don't waste time waiting around for life to do things for you. Just make it happen yo!

So let's grab this 2015 bull by its proverbial horns and steer it in the right direction shall we?

In 2014, I decided to try a new online program to help me keep track of my activity. It's called Training Peaks and, after a full year of use, I can say with surety that I do like it. I have not signed up for the full version but even the watered down free edition has enough to keep me happy and on track. Getting to see weekly, monthly and annual totals for each activity is ridiculously satisfying and I will be continuing to use it in 2015. 

A few days before the beginning of this new year, I decided to try another new program. This one is called My Fitness Pal. I know I know, I'm a little late getting on this bandwagon. After only a few days, I have already come to appreciate the value of this wee app. 

I had several reason for trying this app but the main one was to get a better sense of the type and amout of food that I consume every day. As someone with Type 1, I'm pretty good at figuring out how many carbs I consume in a day but I am also pretty abysmal at knowing how much protein, iron, calories, vitamin A or B12 I consume. And, let's be honest here, the fact that I am 5 pounds heavier than I was this time last year is another good reason for me to pay a little more attention. 

I've been logging my food and activity for one week already and I have learned that: 

1. I easily consume enough fibre every day for two people

2. I don't eat enough protein. In fact I did not eat enough protein even once during that first week. 

3. My diet is naturally low in sodium but also naturally high in sugar, most of which comes from all the fruit I eat, especially with breakfast. My Fitness Pal usually starts warning me by lunch time that I am over my sugar quota for the day. And that's before my evening baklava treat. 

4. Exercise makes a big difference in terms of the number of calories I can eat in a day. When I run or cycle, the number of extra calories that translates into makes it easy for me to stay within range. When I don't, I have to be more vigilant to avoid going over. 

5. Avoiding lows is a great way to avoid overeating and spotting incoming lows early enough to treat them with something nutritious like an apple or a banana is much better than taking in empty sugar calories. I now wince when I have to add two packages of fruit chews to my daily total. 

6. Wine should really come with a nutrition label so that I know how many calories in each glass. Once I looked it up I realized that I had better really want that second glass before I pour it. And I had better have gone for a run that morning too.

So 2015 looks like it's shaping up to be a year of paying closer attention to what I eat in addition to paying attention to what I do. Stay tuned as I am sure I'll be nattering on about all the stuff I am learning.

Other goals?

Find my swimming mojo again and get back in the pool.

Be able to call myself a triathlete again. Last summer I did not do one triathlon and I mean to change that this year by doing several.

Two half marathons - minimum.

Do more speaking engagements in the type 1 diabetes world. I did two last year and would love to do 5 or more this year. They are a wonderful way to help others and inspire myself at the same time.

Lose those five pounds I put on last year - slowly, safely and without sacrificing my health or my sanity to do it.

Get my damn golf handicap below 35 by the end of the 2015 season.

And, by adding up all the kilometres I run, walk, swim and bike, I want to make it all the way to Regina, Saskatchewan, via Thunder Bay of course. That's 2747km, 300k farther than last year.

Scaling Back

The first time I had to take 8 weeks off of running for a stress fracture I lost ten pounds.

I admit that I was worried because I knew I would not be running, or cycling, and I had not yet discovered swimming. Basically I was not going to be doing very much of anything for two months. That is a pretty dramatic drop after the marathon training I had been doing.

I figured I would have to carefully watch the scale and watch what I ate to make sure I didn't gain a pile of weight.

That's why it was so crazy when the pounds started falling off, without any effort on my part. I never lost a pound in the years I ran and, suddenly, it's dropping off and I'm buying new jeans.

I chocked it up to:
- starting to swim which was a different kind of exercise and
- decreasing my calories since I wasn't eating to fuel my running and fend off post-run lows

When I went back to running I then wondered if the weight would come back on again. It didn't. I stayed stable at my new weight for a year and a half with no effort on my part.

The second time I had to take 8 weeks off of running for a stress fracture I gained four pounds.

Yikes!

I actually thought I might lose weight again because I replaced my running with three days of cycling which is not a typical activity for me. Also, cycling doesn't typically cause lows so I don't eat any more than I normally do in the mornings despite working out for an hour. I have the same breakfast I always do, go to work, and eat the same amount of food throughout the day. Increased exercise and no increase in calories should equal weight loss non?

I figured I'd either stay in my steady state or drop a pound or two.

Imagine my surprise when, in the last few weeks, the scale has started creeping back up.

Four pounds isn't horrible by any means but it's enough to notice that my clothes feel a little tighter.

I don't like it.

I don't understand it.

I'm not sure how to fix it.

Here's hoping that being back running again is enough to knock it back down. If not, I'll have to take a close look at what I've been eating to see if portion sizes have crept up or snacking has increased. I don't think I've changed my diet and my insulin usage is pretty stable, if a bit lower than it was when I ran.

I don't know yet what needs to happen but I do know that it's a hell of a lot easier to deal with a four pound weight gain than a ten pound one. So I'm on it.

Hot Pants

Anyone else out there use Groupon? WagJag? OneSpout? I do. I've bought a few things over the past year - notably a coupon for a bike tuneup at BikeFit and a few restaurant Groupons. Other than that, I check them out every morning and quickly decide that I don't need teeth whitening, acne cleaning or all inclusive weekends in Bermuda.  Still, there are enough good deals on there that I keep coming back...just in case.

Monday's Groupon was 58% off Weight Loss Hot Pants.

It's hard to dismiss an offer like that. Particularly when one has absolutely no idea what Weight Loss Hot Pants actually are.

So I clicked on it. 

The first thing I saw was a closeup of a woman's behind as she ran up a set of stairs.  She was, I assumed, wearing Hot Pants.

Then I read the description of the item.  Here is it for your enjoyment:

"Today's athletic wear incorporates technological innovation into its very threads, a feat visible in styles that force legs to jog and promise to tickle their wearers until they've reached their maximum heart rates."

Followed by:

"Zaggora's hip-hugging HotPants slim bodies by up to two jeans sizes in two weeks using a comfortable bioceramic material that emits infrared rays to help women naturally and efficiently amp up weight-loss regimens. The shorts' Celu-Lite technologysmoothes thighs and other dimple-prone areas by galvanizing the skin's internal zamboni to promote a deep warming of body tissues and promote lymphatic drainage. This process boosts sweating by up to 80 per cent and aids in eliminating the toxins responsible for cellulite. Ladies can sport HotPants alone or under other clothing while awake and active, asleep in bed, or while executing a series of high kicks when sleepwalking."

Seriously?!?

I clicked on the links and checked out the website.  I went to their Facebook page and read post after post on their wall.  I checked the calendar to confirm that it was indeed January 16th and not April 1st.  And I concluded that this is a legitimate Groupon offer.  In fact, over 22 had been purchased by 10am.

So either I am really gullible and this is some sort of Groupon joke or lots of other people are really gullible and believe that wearing ticklish zamboni shorts will somehow contribute to weight loss.  

This is where I sigh. 

I do not struggle with obesity but I know how hard it is just to maintain my weight so I can imagine (a little bit anyway) how hard it must be to lose weight.  I am not dying of a horrible disease so I can't imagine (although diabetes helps me imagine a little bit) how tempting farfetched cures like shark cartilage and peach pits must be.  

These Hot Pants are really funny in some ways and it's easy to laugh at the ridiculousness of the description.  

But people buy them because of that description.  Because of the comments on a Facebook wall swearing that they helped someone lose two dress sizes in two weeks.  Because they've tried everything else and this is their next hope. 

And that makes me sad.  

And angry.  

People who are vulnerable, people who are desperate, people who have tried everything else will try anything in the hope that it will work.  And products like Hot Pants capitalize on that desperation.  

If only it were that easy. 

We'd all be sporting Hot Pants and our body sizes would be shrinking by the minute.  

For the record, the cost of those pants is approximately the cost of a three month unlimited membership at my local pool.  Just saying...

16 Ounces

It has taken me over three years of running, six half marathons, a few duathlons and a commitment to running a marathon but I did it!

I have lost one pound.

One entire pound.

Sixteen ounces.

0.4539 kilograms.

Whew!

I know, I know, being healthy and having a healthy body image means throwing the scale out the window.  It's not about pounds but about how you feel. In my case though, I do think it's kinda funny.  Here's my story.

When I started running, I weighed 170 pounds. My weight was very very steady and I fluctuated between 169 and 171 all the time, no matter what I did, or didn't do.  Like all runners, I started running expecting the pounds to drop off.

As my running increased, my body changed.  I became more toned and muscular.  I actually look like a runner girl now.  But no matter how much I ran, my weight stayed steady, never swinging farther than 169 to 171.

My mother finds it hilarious and will often ask me how much I'm running and whether I've lost any weight yet. We laugh and joke about how big I would get if I were to stop running. The honest answer - I probably wouldn't change very much at all. 

The food I eat is relatively consistent whether I'm running 40 minutes three times a week or training for a marathon.  Sensible breakfast, lunch and dinner with reasonable portion sizes. 

It's all the other food I eat that's the problem. As a person with diabetes, I don't always have a choice about whether or not to eat.  In order to keep my blood sugars in a safe zone, I often have to eat before, during and after runs. I try to keep it to a minimum but it's still calories in versus calories out.  After longer runs, I'll often have low blood sugars later in the day so I need to eat for those too.  Bad lows can take two or three juice boxes followed by bread with Nutella to resolve.  Do the math on the calories and tell me if that sounds like a sensible snack to have an hour after lunch.  It's not and it can be really frustrating to have to eat when you're not hungry.

On the other hand, when I'm not running as much, I don't have as many lows and I don't need to eat before during and after runs. 

The more I run, the more I feed the diabetes gods and the less I run, the less they demand.  It's actually a pretty good weight management tool.

That being said, I got on the scale last week and I saw 168. I stared slack-jawed for a moment. The number looked so foreign that it took a second to register. 

Being the sensible, logical person that I am, I figured I was dehydrated.  So I drank extra water all day, ate my regular stuff and got on with my day.  Next morning - 168.

The morning after that - 168.

It's been steady there for a week now.

I think I've lost a pound.

At my rate of 1 pound every three years, I'll be 49 years old by the time I lose the other four.