Not so healthy but happy week

Yes, we are alive. The three year old recovered quickly from his puking bout, but my oldest son had a bad tummy for almost a week. Today, finally, he had a normal day with all that it entails, digestive-wise (I will spare you the details). I got a sore throat mid-week, just out of the blue; although it hasn’t gone away, it doesn’t seem to be getting worse or turning into anything bad, so I guess that’s good. Better than my legs.

After a month and a half of happy, steady running around 4 times/week, between 5K and 5 miles each time, my body finally put its foot down in protest. It started out as a dull ache in my shins (which I should not have ignored), and finally became unbearable, especially after running; a classic case of shin splints. I’ve had it before, when I was younger, during heavy soccer training season or summer running camps. In Swedish it is called benhinneinflammation (leg membrane inflammation). Two weeks of rest, and then a more carefully constructed running schedule should do the trick. In the meantime, I will be exploring the very popular low impact elliptical machine to keep the calories burning.

Although we are not in top shape health-wise, we had a fairly good week school-wise. Today we finished off the school week with something fun: we put a plain bar of soap in the microwave and watched it grow into a huge cottonball-like solid foamy mass. So awesome! Then we let it cool, crumbled it up, added a little water, banana scent and blue food coloring, mixed it back into a paste, and put it in molds to make cute little blue, heart shaped bars of soap. My friend who sometimes flirts with the idea of homeschooling one of a couple of her kids commented, “Oh wow! That sounds so cool! What were the science facts you illustrated by doing that?”

Hmmm. Yeah, well, actually we had heard that it was really cool, and so we just wanted to watch the soap grow in the microwave. Although I guess I did explain to the kids why this happened and how, the chemistry around it, and what a soap is made out of, so perhaps there’s some science there.

I suggested to William that he should wrap the soap bars in little tissue paper packages and give them out as part of the gift bags at his birthday party next week. His answer indicated though that he doesn’t think homemade, banana-scented, baby blue, heart-shaped bars of soap is something a nine year old includes in a birthday party loot bag. What a pity.

An update on the whole getting in shape thing

It has been a little over a month since I started my new regimen of exercise and controlled eating. Let me re-emphasize that I am not really on a diet (you saw my Easter menu!) since I want this to be a slight lifestyle adjustment rather than a temporary state to reach a goal. I’m just not eating everything in sight anymore and not everything at once, and I’m spending one hour a day on myself, exercising. 

The results so far? I’ve lost 10 Lbs, and I can run three miles in 35 minutes without ever stopping. I still have to walk a bit to make it all the way to four and five miles, but I’m working on that. OR; if I run slower, about 5 miles/hour, I can make it to four miles without stopping, and then if I walk half a mile, I can run the last half mile a little faster, making it to five miles in just about an hour. I’m pretty sure all this is completely unimportant, but I’m having fun pushing myself and trying to run faster and longer. I was thinking that if I can keep this up, maybe I can run the Beirut marathon next year, at least the 10K.

My clothes are a little less tight, but most of all, I feel stronger and healthier. The weight loss is not without physical complications though: I’ve got acne, which I haven’t had since junior high, and I don’t smell very good. Apparently it’s normal. Burning protein releases ammonia (which is why my sports brah smells like a chemical vat after each workout), and most important, during weight loss,

“…you enter a chemical state called ketosis. In this state, your cells make chemicals called "ketone bodies" from fats. […] Ketone bodies have an odd odor to them […]. Once you enter ketosis, it's common for others to smell ketone bodies on your breath and in your sweat, which can give you a foul, sickly-sweet odor.”

Nice, huh? Most impacted are of course my dear, very understanding and forgiving husband, and the Lebanese soap and deodorant manufacturers, not to mention the Listerine importer and redistributors (who must be having a ball, since Listerine costs a fortune here).

But oh well. What is it they say? There’s no silver lining without a cloud? And a bird in the hand is better than killing two with one stone, as my dad used to say.

Post-Easter now-what-feelings...

Yesterday, the day after our Easter feast, I sat here on the couch and felt a bit sad. Melancholic and uninspired. All throughout Lent I thought that I would be happy after the Easter weekend, invigorated and spirited. Instead I felt like my strength – my chi - had drained away with all the feasting (actually, mainly the work it entails: cooking, dishes and cleaning up), and without any particular signs of appreciation from my family, it seemed like it was all just a bunch of work for nothing. Not to mention all that extra running I did, just so that I could eat some extra treats (that weren’t quite right anyways, because you can’t buy my favorite treats here). Sigh. Even spiritually I felt kind of the way you feel when you get to the end of a long, amazingly written and very exciting book, like David Copperfield. You love the ending, but finishing the book is upsetting, because, well, you are done with it - you go from complete and perfect satisfaction to nothing. Not that I am done with God, no, and I do realize that Easter is not the end; “Surrexit Christus, spes mea,” right? Still, I think I’m experiencing some kind of anti-climax here. A “now-what-moment.”

So; now what?

Where do you turn for inspiration? Do you read? What do you read? Do you do something special? What? Please share!

A post about something that has not been done

My very smart husband rarely does anything without proper research. He is very thorough. If he is going to cook Indian food, for example, he will acquaint himself with the history of Indian food, various techniques, regions, ingredients and their properties, and anything else most people don’t know about Indian food (which they nonetheless successfully cook all over the world).

Lacking the patience, time, and motivation that my husband has, I don’t always do my research before venturing into unknown waters. Take my newly begun effort to get in shape for example. I remember when the husband got in shape back in between the older boys; he left nothing to fate. He knew exactly how long to do what, and precisely the most optimal way reach his goal. Me, not so much. I feel like I’m fumbling in the dark. I like running, but after a couple of weeks of intense running, it seems I run further much faster, and I’m just not sure how to direct that. 

I used to run three miles and it would take me around 40 minutes. Then I got better at it, and managed to run three miles in closer to 30 minutes, so a couple of times, I ran four or even five miles instead, which took me about an hour. Then today I went to run on the treadmill at the gym - because it was quite windy outside and the field was occupied by football players, whom I find a bit intimidating sometimes - but the two treadmills that show any system were occupied, and I got stuck with a treadmill that only shows kilometers. So today I'm not sure how fast or far I ran compared to other days. I should probably look it up. When I get a moment.

It’s the same thing with other exercise; is there something special I could be doing to focus on certain areas of muscles that are useful at my age? How much should I do of what? For the moment, I just do whatever comes my way. if not running, then “Today’s workout” on the Wii. Sometimes it asks me if I would like to ‘customize a work out’, and I just look at it with a puzzled face. What could I do?

You see, I ask the questions, at least. I just don’t take the time to look it all up, check out the books, and put together a program. Sigh. I should, shouldn’t I? Why not make my effort more efficient?

Things I have learned while trying to shed some excess weight...

• You need to eat a lot less than you think. It has been an eye-opener for me to see how few calories I actually need every day, and most of all, how little I actually need to eat to reach my daily calorie need.
• Calorie intake and calorie spending is like a daily budget; it has to be balanced. If you put energy into your body and don’t spend it all, it will build up. This means that if you want to consume extra energy (e.g. have pecan pie for dessert), you need to do something extra to spend it all.
• Being in the mood for something sweet does not usually mean I’m hungry. Usually it means I need to drink water. Losing weight makes you very thirsty!
• Because of this, it is not a good idea to drink beer, and definitely nothing stronger, late in the evening, as this will dehydrate you and make you wake up with a headache and a very dry mouth, otherwise known as a hangover.
• After about a week of a balanced diet, that sweet/carbohydrate craving after meals goes away. I also feel more full after meals for a longer amount of time, and very rarely snacky.
• Exercise makes you feel really good! And it doesn't take as much time as you think.
• Habits (e.g. having a snack and/or a glass of wine in the evening in front of a 100 minute movie) are easy to form, but they’re also not that hard to break if you introduce new habits (e.g. doing a Wii exercise program and then having a cup of decaf tea in front of a 40 minute show).
• If you don’t eat after 7 pm at night, you wake up really, really hungry in the morning! Eggs are super filling and well worth their calories. For something sweet, I put a teaspoon of honey in my tea.
• You don’t have to diet to lose weight; just make a few adjustments and pay a little more attention to yourself.

A little less weighed down

My first week of exercise and paying attention to what I eat went so-so. I only went running a couple of times, and ate a little more than I should have. I still lost 1 Lb. It was a good motivational warm up that said, "Look! It doesn't have to be that hard, does it?"

I also received an e-mail from Renee who shared advice that she has heard from others trying to get out of vicious dieting cycles: only eat when you're hungry and stop as soon as you're full. Don't buy junk food so the temptation isn't right there, and drink plenty of water. Good advice, and comforting to know that I have friends out there cheering for me.

My second week, which is just ending, has gone much better. I've been using Lose It! to fill out my  daily intake - roughly - and adding my exercise. The program is really easy to set up, and takes very little time to keep up with. I've exercised every day; mainly running (3-4 miles per session), but also swimming, Mel B on the Wii, and Rachael Cohen's Nestle aerobics video. I've eaten pretty much anything I want to, just a little less, and not all at once. The scales show -5 Lb.

It's a start.

Have I turned into one of those moms?

Since I started paying attention to my body a little while back, I’ve been running every day - around the track, weather permitting, or on a treadmill at the gym, when the weather is less permitting. Lately William has been joining me as well. This morning when we left the house, I accidentally grabbed a bib from the towel pile in the closet instead of a hand towel. When William noticed me wiping my sweat with a blue terrycloth bib that said "You think I'm cute? You should see my dad!" he looked at me like I had entered the gym naked, singing songs from the 80’s. When we got back I heard him tell August what had happened, adding, “I was so embarrassed I thought I was going to die!” I really don’t think anyone else noticed. However William was obviously a bit traumatized; my little boy who used to adore me. Sigh.

A friend commented, “This is only the beginning of the myriad ways in which you'll humiliate him by your very existence. Just remind him that you once had to nurse him in restaurants.”

Spot on.

Weighed down

I’ve started some kind of… something. I need to lose a lot of weight, but I'm like the worst dieter ever, so saying that I'm on a diet would be incorrect.

I have dieted in the past. A year after I had my second baby I lost 8 kgs over three weeks on the Atkins diet. It was really, really hard. I was always thirsty, always felt kind of icky (from eating too much bacon and eggs, no doubt), and I craved apples and strawberries so bad I couldn't stand it). The weight stayed off, and I guess three weeks seems like a small sacrifice, but it really was unbearable. I’ve also tried weight watchers, but the weight loss was slow, and at this point in my life, the whole counting calories and point system is much too complicated.

What I’m doing now is

1/I'm trying to think about what I put in my mouth, and not eat like I'm used to. Although I certainly know what's healthy and not, I have not cared one bit over the past couple of years about what I eat. I’ve eaten what’s cheap, easy, at hand and tasty. I’ve eaten because something was there in front of me, or because it was easy. The result is devastating. In the past I've only weighed this much while pregnant. And not like first trimester pregnant, but really pregnant.

The good news is that it’s not hard for me to restrict my eating, since I’m not very particular about what I eat or the size of a meal, as long as it’s tasty and at hand. Vegetarian, no red meat, just salads, no bread, whatever; I’m cool with all foods (as long as there’s some variety). The bad news is, it’s going to take a long time for me to lose all this weight, and I don’t know if I have the mental capacity to keep myself focused. I’m so used to putting everyone and everything ahead of me, that I can see myself moving this whole dieting business to the back burner if it takes too much of my time and effort. Why go through the effort of making a salad when Ramen noodles are so much quicker?

2/I've started exercising regularly, like, every day. I run around the track - or on the treadmill at the gym if it's raining - for about 45 minutes every day. If I can manage, I like to do this around sun set – after school is done but before dinnertime, while the kids play in the playground. It is so beautiful and energizing to run under a pink, purple, blue, yellow and red sky, against the blue Mediterranean, it takes my breath away every time I come around the track so that I have the sea in front of me. If nothing else, this splendor along with the wonderful feeling I get when running, will encourage me to keep going. Then after the kids go to bed I do 30-45 minutes of Mel B, which is a Wii fitness game Courtney got for me. It’s not exactly cardiovascular, but it's fun and it gives me really sore muscles so I figured it must be doing something. Most of all, it keeps me from watching TV with snacks and drinks in the evenings. See, there’s some strategy here.

I’m no health guru, and there might be more efficient ways for me to lose weight and get into shape, but I figure that if I can keep this going for a while, I might start seeing some results soon. I hope. What do you think? Do you have any advice?