My Stomach Hurts

No running last Thursday or Friday but I did run on Saturday. 11-minute mile before breakfast. I was hurting pretty badly.

Saturday morning:
114.8 lbs

Yesterday morning:
116.8 lbs

Last night:
55.x% TBW (YAY finally something over 52% TBW)
19.2% body fat

This morning:
115.6 lbs

My waist is still a solid 26" but the size of my lower abdomen has decreased significantly since last year.

I paused this blog entry to make an omelet. I was thinking that I have been really bad about eating in the morning so I should eat in the morning now. I made a vegetable 2-egg omelet. I ate half and I am full. Full like my stomach hurts. It is not the omelet. I had this feeling yesterday when I ate 1/3 of my meal at brunch lunch (brlunch). So full. I have just lost my appetite. I have been really stressed out for the past few months. My stomach feels like it's in knots all the time, upside down and inside out and doing somersaults and backflips, so when I introduce food into the mix everything hurts. I already eat slowly but I have to eat more slowly than usual. My stomach is always hurting. I hate this feeling. I hope everything feels better for me soon. On the plus side I was able to fit into one of my dresses for the first time ever. My high school boyfriend's sister-in-law gave me a pretty red dress in 2003 but it was always too small for me. Not sure why I kept it for 9 years especially because I did not consider myself to have much mass to lose at that time but I guess the waiting game played off; I was able to fit into it. I am smaller now than I was in high school. That is slightly scary, but if there is one plus from being this stressed out I guess it is fat loss. Ugh, even saying that was forceful. I don't feel proud of it or good about it. I just see it as a physical result of mental and emotional stress. I guess this is why guys complain that girls will never be happy about their weight :P I wonder how the rest of my body is doing. I hope my immune system stays intact. I love my immune system. I am glad my acne is not stress-related. My skin has been doing pretty well. I still have my goggles tan though.

Sorry for the emo blog post. Thank you to my family, friends, and bf for putting up with my tears. :D

Run, run, run!

My weight was all over the place this weekend, from 115 to 119 yesterday morning.

On Sunday Armando and I went for a bike ride. We went to the Ballona Creek Path for a total of 8  miles round trip. I skipped my run for that day. I only saw 2 ducks. I wish I saw more ducks. Also, riding my bike with my snowboarding helmet wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. My butt was hurting after we got to Marina Del Rey and had to take a break before we turned and headed back. I ate not great on Sunday: started off with two pancakes. That can't be good! I didn't eat enough vegetables and I ate too many refined carbs.

Speaking of eating poorly, yesterday I had "healthy nachos" for lunch -- that is, vegetarian without sour cream ;) After work I picked up my arm band from my sister, found my headphones, and turned on Pandora and went for my run. I was feeling really down about it because I thought it was going to take me so much to be able to get back to running a mile full without stopping. I got to my half mile mark and kept going. And kept going, and kept going... I went the full mile in 10 minutes! That was insane! I could not believe it! The music really helped me keep my mind off my feet and my breathing. At times it was just me and the music and I wasn't even paying attention to what my feet were doing. Don't get me wrong: I was really really tired and hurting in the end but I pushed myself. Here's my route:


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I had a hunch those nachos might have helped me, so this morning I ran without breakfast. I weighed in at 116 and hopped outside. It was really difficult especially in the beginning and end. When I got a few steps out the door I didn't think I was even going to make it to the halfway point. It was painful in more than one area. My legs were jelly. My lungs couldn't get enough air in them. My eyes were squinting from the light even though it was cloudy. It took so much energy to move my feet and I didn't even feel like I was going that far. But what do you know, I ended up doing the same route as yesterday. I forgot to time myself but I went through 2-3 songs on Pandora so I'm going to estimate 10-11 minutes. Also, I started to run on the asphalt instead of the cement on the bigger streets. Sidewalk is very hard and doesn't absorb any impact while street is just hard. More difficult to run on street, but better on the knees.

Last night I tried to hydrate up but I was SOOOO dehydrated -- 53%!

I need to up my fruit intake.

More running

OMG!! HUGE disappointment... I ran more yesterday and today and I thought I ran 0.75 miles but I just calculated it and it was really just 0.5 each time. Lame!!! Bad maths!! Bad leg muscles!!! Omg I am HORRIBLE at this. I ran 1.3 miles for a total of 4 + 6 + 5 = 15 minutes. I don't remember the last time I was this out of shape!!!

Yesterday I was 116.2 or something and today I was 115.2 and 115.0. Somehow I managed to lose a pound overnight, cool.

Last night I was 54.4% TBW and 21.5% body fat. Take that, "athlete" status. This is such a horrible way to measure. I guess I could plot this on a line graph and see the trend. Blogger / Google should implement that in here.

This morning I ran my half mile (UGH) on an empty stomach. Well, last night I went to bed at around 10, woke up at 4, couldn't go to sleep for 2 hours, woke up at 9, stayed in bed until 11, and went for my run without eating anything. Probably not the best, but I was all lightweight at 115 and shit I was all, I can do this. It was a risk though because I know I have a tendency to feel sick if I work out on an empty stomach. But I wanted to work out in the morning before I ate because of the whole.. your muscles have a limited amount of glycogen because they were depleted of that overnight and your body burns through that soon and then starts to burn fat thing. I don't know what the time period is though to burn through the remaining glycogen (or what glycogen actually is.. I could probably look it up.) and resort to fat for energy but I'm hoping it was 0.25 miles of running or less. Actually, I ran the half mile and then walked and then picked up another tenth of a mile running. So I'm hoping I burned some actual fat there. And there was progress since last night.

It's 11:54 and I don't know what to eat for lunch. I ran out of food. I need to buy brown rice too for Armando.

Food today

I had an emergency this morning so I didn't eat breakfast. Half of a bad macaron I made last night (no feet AND it was hollow inside ughhhhH!!!), rice and a Tofurkey sausage, rice and a veggie burger. Then I had Sojourn tonight so I didn't eat at night. Not enough water. Tired and hungry. I'll give into tired.

SO out of breath.

Two things happened recently:

1. Someone very close to me joined a weight loss competition where the stakes are HIGH.
2. I went to Mammoth and two runs in my legs were aching.

I am helping the subject in #1 diet and exercise. Looking up protein powders made me want to go at it again. However, it was mostly the latter that made me realize exactly how out of shape I am. I decided to take on another shot at Insanity, but before that hardcoreness, I thought it would be a good idea to get into some sort of shape.

Yesterday I put on my running shoes (hello dusty little things), shorts (hello giant bruise I got from falling on a tree while snowboarding), and a t-shirt. I was so not in my mode. I couldn't find my armband phone holder thing so I could listen to music, and I know I brought my earphones from the house to my apartment but not sure where it is, but it's okay, I wanted it to be just me and the pavement. Keys and phone in hand, I hopped outside. My first thought was I had forgotten how to run. Ok, it's like fast walking with your knees slightly higher and your body bent slightly more forward. K, got that part covered. Then I realized I forgot to map it out. Oh well, just run around in circles and don't go too far or I'll get lost and be too lazy to try to find my way back and end up frustrated and crying on the grass a block away from my apartment. (The battery in my phone was dying, another reason it was okay I couldn't find my armband phone thing.) Problem solved. I hit an entire whopping 4 minutes for 0.3 miles before my whole body started aching, starting with my right side, then going to my left side, then my lungs, then my heart, then my trachea, then my pride and soul. I had to stop before I died. I walked a bit, then picked up again, telling myself I was doing Interval training. (I can convince myself of anything.) 10 minutes in I imagined if I had run the entire 10 minutes and was instantly intimidated by the daunting thought of running for 10 continuous minutes. Then my nose started running -- yup, forgot about how my nose runs when my feet do. Two girls also jogging ran past me separately while I was walking, their bodies as light as air, their legs with the strength of a raging fire (excuse the song lyric). Bitches.

I eventually made it home in one piece and realized, hey, it wasn't so bad. It was 20-30 minutes since I left which isn't too much time. I wasn't too sweaty. Exercising makes me stay away from bad food (I forwent the quesadilla I was thinking about). Exercising could make me hot. The time in between not exercising and exercising regularly is a PAIN but it could be worth it. I'm not that hurting today which I'm kind of disappointed at; wish I pushed myself harder. I need to get to a point where I feel comfortable enough to start Insanity, and summer's coming up REALLY soon, so that needs to be fast. So here I go again, blogging in an effort to encourage myself to keep up.

Current:
Weight: I weighed myself on Monday, Tuesday, and this morning (Wednesday), and I was 116.0, 116.2, and 116.4 lbs. I seem to be gaining 0.2 lbs by the day! :D Well, seeing as how Monday I was coming off from a weekend of endurance and dehydration, I'll stick with 116.4 as my starting point.
Body Fat %: 19.2% on Tuesday. "Athlete" by some standards, which is SO misleading -- I think it applies to "athletes" as much as it applies to "people who don't eat a lot."
TBW: 55.7%? 57.5%? I forget. I will weigh myself tonight.
Waist measurement: 26", which means I lost soooooooooooo much muscle because my waist was still 26" when my weight was 121 lbs.

Goals:
Body fat % to be 15%
Waist measurement: smaller than 26"! I've never hit smaller than 26".

I'll exercise by running for a couple of weeks, see how I feel. I want to be able to run a mile without stopping and I'm not sure if I can do that in a couple of weeks to be honest with the way I started out yesterday. A third of a mile before I quit! How shameful. I gotta push myself hard!

Willpower and Decision Making

I'm reading an article on the NY Times that talks about mental energy and how it relates to willpower and decision making. The gist is that you don't always make the same decision even if the subject in question is the same: it also depends on when you make that decision and what decisions you've made before that. In short: many decisions usually means that the last decisions were made hastily with the least effort because you've depleted your mental energy making decisions on the first few things.

A few pages into this article segued into willpower amongst dieters.

The discoveries about glucose help explain why dieting is a uniquely difficult test of self-control — and why even people with phenomenally strong willpower in the rest of their lives can have such a hard time losing weight. They start out the day with virtuous intentions, resisting croissants at breakfast and dessert at lunch, but each act of resistance further lowers their willpower. As their willpower weakens late in the day, they need to replenish it. But to resupply that energy, they need to give the body glucose. They’re trapped in a nutritional catch-22:
1. In order not to eat, a dieter needs willpower.
2. In order to have willpower, a dieter needs to eat.

As the body uses up glucose, it looks for a quick way to replenish the fuel, leading to a craving for sugar. After performing a lab task requiring self-control, people tend to eat more candy but not other kinds of snacks, like salty, fatty potato chips. The mere expectation of having to exert self-control makes people hunger for sweets. A similar effect helps explain why many women yearn for chocolate and other sugary treats just before menstruation: their bodies are seeking a quick replacement as glucose levels fluctuate. A sugar-filled snack or drink will provide a quick improvement in self-control (that’s why it’s convenient to use in experiments), but it’s just a temporary solution. The problem is that what we identify as sugar doesn’t help as much over the course of the day as the steadier supply of glucose we would get from eating proteins and other more nutritious foods. 

The article then goes into what brought up this essay in the first place which was a study done on the sentences of Jewish Israeli prisoners who were showing up in court. Similar to how we would always showed our parents our low test scores right after they ate in hopes that their full tummies would make them not get as mad at us (er.. at least I did, but I actually *got* low test scores, so you high-achieving Asians reading this blog may have no idea what I'm talking about), the prisoners had a higher chance of receiving parole right after lunch. Towards the end of the day more prisoners got denied parole proportionally for the same or lesser sentences, presumably because it was easier for the judge to avoid making a decision based on evidence and keep the prisoner in jail. So, food makes us happy. And you suck at making decisions when your stomach is empty. No-brainer. Back on topic....

I'm not sure how much exactly I agree with everything this journalist has stated. No doubt you get tired of making decisions and say, "fuck it, just take anything" after a long process of making decisions. But when it comes to self-control and repeat instances of "should I eat the cake or should I not," I feel like it becomes easier. For example: In January I decided to go mostly vegan for a month if any of you can remember. It was tough in the beginning, but once I got used to it, it became easy to avoid foods I told myself not to eat. And then 3 weeks into it I got a mini molten lava chocolate cake and I couldn't even finish it which amazed me so bad -- I didn't have the sweet tooth I was so familiar with. I always say that if you're going to avoid something you eat a lot, it's hard in the beginning, but it gets easier after the first few days. I stop craving those foods. In this example, using my willpower seemed like "practice" and it got easier with way less effort as the days went on. Of course, there is also a factor of addiction here too, as well as seeking out specific foods that didn't have animal products associated with them. Like my sweet tooth. I used to ALWAYS have to have something sweet after lunch but after a few days of forcing myself not to eat it, the urge is really really light after lunch.

“Good decision making is not a trait of the person, in the sense that it’s always there,” Baumeister says. “It’s a state that fluctuates.” His studies show that people with the best self-control are the ones who structure their lives so as to conserve willpower. They don’t schedule endless back-to-back meetings. They avoid temptations like all-you-can-eat buffets, and they establish habits that eliminate the mental effort of making choices. Instead of deciding every morning whether or not to force themselves to exercise, they set up regular appointments to work out with a friend. Instead of counting on willpower to remain robust all day, they conserve it so that it’s available for emergencies and important decisions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?pagewanted=5&ref=general&src=me

All this not working out is really paying off

**EDIT:** I just realized that this is basically the same blog post from a month ago. So, apparently, not much has changed. Read if you're REALLY bored or forgot what I wrote in my last post. 

Lately I've been consistently between 117-120 lbs. Not really eating much in general... been kind of angry at food, I guess. Also I want to save money. Went on vacation to Chicago and when I came back my skin was super inflamed. I went to the dermatologist the day after I got back and he helped me a bit. My LATEST food gripe is bananas. I ate bananas while in Chicago and everyday when I got back for about 6 days, noticed that I started breaking out and tried stopping bananas, and my skin cleared up after a couple of days. Apparently bananas fall into the category of "inflammatory" foods. Fuck bananas, fuck peanuts, fuck gluten, fuck dairy. The list of foods I can eat is smaller than the foods I can't / won't. I have noticed though that I don't have to completely stay away from it; if I eat those foods sparingly then it seems to be okay. My self-control has worsened. I find myself "cheating" a lot more often, and it's not even at times where I am STARVING and there are absolutely no other options.

Previously I was eating for the purpose of getting adequate nutrition and building muscle. Now I'm eating for the purpose of not breaking out. This War on Acne has paid off, though: my skin is SIGNIFICANTLY better than it was in 2008 and because of this I am happier than when I ate anything I wanted and had acne. I have found foods that are like switches in my body that I can turn on and off (although the off switch is much more difficult to flip than the on switch). And I guess the other payoff is that I've lost weight. I wonder if I can lose 3-5 more lbs to get to a solid 115...