MA-gnificent Time to Train for a Half-Marathon!

I'm BACK! It's been two months, but I'm with it! Now I haven't been off the diet for the whole 2 months, but it was shaky there for a while towards the end with me cheating almost every other weekend. I think my body was NONE too happy with that, but it's all over with now! I bottomed out on the Atkins diet at 226 (keeping in mind I started at 242). So the diet definitely worked in some ways, but definitely not in others. I'll get into that in a little bit.

The GREAT news!

During this time, I was able to finally finish my master's degree!! I am now Lindsay Gustafson, MA. Yayuh! I revised my paper and went in for my final oral exam on November 10 and have been stress-free ever since! Well, I say stress-free, but in reality, the truth still hasn't hit me yet, though I'm slowly discovering it with all the free-time I have. I still feel guilty doing things for fun and not staying home on weekends, but I'm sure all of that will pass!

So what did this do to my diet? Well, I will tell you that the weekend before my oral exam, all diets were out the window. I reverted back to pure study mode which called for lots of sugar/chocolate. LOTS. Like 2 bags of pumpkin-shaped reese's miniatures, combined with several other dessert items....and then dinners that had nothing to do with Atkins. It was fabulous, and very study-conducive, but unbelievably unhealthy....as was the celebratory dinner after the exam. The result: I gained 6lbs. Even worse? I gained inches. Many of the clothes I was just starting to fit back into have since gone back in the "uh-uh" pile. Though I watched what I ate, I didn't restrict myself much.


What you should understand about the Atkins Diet:

Results are there, and they're great, but this is in no way a long-term way of dieting. I never intended to stay on it forever, but just to kick start my weight-loss at a time when I couldn't commit to much exercising. And it worked well for that. The way I went about the diet wasn't the healthiest either. The basics are that in Phase 1 (the only phase I did in the program) you stay under 20 net-carbs a day (subtracting any fiber grams from the carb count). Well, most meat has NO carbs, but vegetables have a few and fruit is just plain off-limits. I'm the kind of person who eats her Lucky Charms saving the marshmallows for last. So for breakfast and lunch, I would generally eat less than 8 carbs so I can have what I wanted when I got home for dinner. But then at dinner, I didn't want to waste all my carbs on dinner food, when I could finally get some Atkins' desserts. So what resulted was a severe lack of vegetables in my diet and even with taking all my vitamins everyday (including a pill for potassium) had several ridiculous cramps in my calf a day. Not a good sign! Of course the Atkins people tell you NOT to skip out on your veggies. They really are trying to help you do the diet as healthily as possible, I just did not follow instructions, and I suspect I'm not the only one!

AND THEN.....

..there was the Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving morning. How long had I known about this? A couple of months. Did I train for it? NOPE. But I finished in 49 minutes and something-something seconds (it's not important). I was only about 3 minutes behind my time for the Princess and the Frog 5K in Disney last March, but I was stopping and taking pictures that whole time, too. Point of the story...I gotta work on it!

Here's a picture of the gang:

That would be my niece, me, April, Scott, Mom, my other niece, and my sister.

Here is a picture of me finishing:


Yep, that's me finishing... right behind MY MOM!!! Nothing wrong with that...but...well...it's my mom!! She can run faster than me!!! It's the first time that I know of in my lifetime that this is the case (injury situations excluded). She was training for the run, so she's become quite sprightly in her jogging capabilities. I'm proud of her. She's even signed up for the HALF-MARATHON in Disney in February! She's going to kick some ass...just hopefully not mine! Haha. I'm kidding of course. In all honesty, if we all finish in whatever order, I'll be happy as a clam as we wallow in our physical misery in the hotel room together afterwards. It's gonna be GREAT!

And so it begins.....AGAIN.....

Thus begins my training for the Princess Half-Marathon on February 27. If you're interested in doing it, too, register HERE. It's already over 70% full, so hurry! According to their online countdown I have 85 days to train. I can do this! Last year I only trained for about 60 days and made it 10 miles. I plan to make it this year and I'm psyched about it! So here's the plan:

Between now and Christmas I'll be running 3 times a week (starting tonight - my legs are STILL sore from the 5K!), and watching what I eat, but not necessarily following a particular diet. After Christmas I'll be all in on a strict diet and (ready for this?) getting used to running outside on the cold hard pavement using the Galloway Method. OUCH! I'll be ready, then, though. I got a great deal at fleetfeet on Black Friday for a really good sports bra. The thing fits like a bullet proof vest. I'll be testing that sucker out tonight! Should be great!

Just last night I made a pumpkin Devil's Food Cake with fat free cool whip. It was excellent for lunch today! I also made a batch of Fiber One banana nut muffins for breakfast for the rest of the week. It's been a while since I've loaded up on fiber without tons of protein to back me up, so the results may be explosive. Dinners are relatively good, also, with lots of options for chicken. I'll just need to watch my carbs and not go overboard now that I can have them again. I'm a sucker for rice and noodles! (but I am using brown rice and whole wheat noodles)

Note the new starting-point picture! I think I'm starting off better than I did about a year ago.

I'm open to training and diet suggestions! Especially if you have any favorite recipes or exercises! Let me know!

Some days, pork rinds just aren't enough....

Alright! I'm starting off Week 3 at 234 lbs (8 lbs lighter than 2 weeks ago!) ready to go in my new apartment inside my new apartment complex with my newly-found motivation to GET THINGS DONE! I'm not sure if it's because my paper is done or because I have completely cleansed and relocated my living space, but I'm in a busy mood, which is great incentive to keep active all afternoon instead of flopping out on the couch when I get home from work and staying there until I roll myself out just to flop back down into bed.

Casualties of the Fat-Life

Another incentive to get moving is noticing, as well as hearing from my parents and boyfriend, how much weight my DOG has gained. Abby Gustafson has unfortunately been a casualty of my weight gain and sedentary life-style. Normally, the routine has been to take her out in the mornings before I leave, and then again right when I get home, and normally one more time before we go to bed. And when we go, it's only for her to poop and pee. I didn't have much time, and I had work to get done all sprawled out on my couch. Abby (a.k.a. Tater) somewhat conformed to this lifestyle and snuggled with me while I worked on stuff and occasionally dropped a tennis ball on my keyboard for me to throw around a little. A couple of times I tried to throw her tennis ball with her outside, but she only grabbed it and ran to the door to go back inside so she could get a treat (story of my life). Well, at this new apartment complex, there are lots more dogs, so when I take Abby out, I will definitely have to have her on a leash, and since I'll have her on a leash, she'll have to stay outside with me. No more running to the door. So I think we'll get a good walk everyday around the new (and very safe) complex. Tater needs to be able to fit into those cute sweaters I bought her last year!

What's Been Going On

As I said before, I've been moving into my new apartment since Tuesday of last week. However, Wednesday and Thursday I did nothing because I was diagnosed with bronchitis, a sinus infection, and an ear infection. I felt like a raccoon (don't they carry a bunch of diseases? or did my mom just lie to keep me from petting them...). Anyways, that slowed my progress somewhat, so this weekend Scott and I got it done big time. By Monday everything from the old apartment was moved over into the new one and now I just have to clean the old apartment up for inspection. Just about everything is in its new home at the new apartment. I have my skinny clothes on standby on the top shelf of my new closet. I've also thrown away tons of stuff (soooo relieving!!) and set some other things aside for a yard sale next weekend. Love love LOVE this organization. I love plugging in a documentary on netflix to listen to while I dig and separate out bins full of junk. It's just HEAVEN!

However, it's all very hard work, too, and my body wants to revert back to rewarding itself with food. So I've had some serious cravings this past week and weekend. The worst was on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon when eating out. Saturday I wanted a beer more than life itself. I settled for a whisky sour and a coconut rum on ice (whisky sour was only 5 carbs and rum has NO carbs...but your body will burn off the alcohol before it gets back to burning fat, so it slows you down just a little). Sunday, Scott and I met up with my parents for lunch at a BBQ place where they had fried EVERYTHING and the most heavenly looking creme pies I've ever seen in my life. I did eat a couple of fried green beans without the breading on it. I really wanted to try the jalapeno dipping sauce....it was delicious by the way.

But this next week will be fine. I've reloaded on my Atkins snacks to sustain me through certain cravings. I used to wonder how the Atkins people could be making money with all their information available for free on their website, and then I realized the snag you with their brands of chocolate and milk. They're the only ones who can make chocolate peanut butter cups taste just like the real thing. However, I should warn y'all, everything else tastes like cardboard, except the peanut butter and chocolate granola bar they have. That one is good, but everything else is incredibly deceiving. The milkshakes aren't bad, but well, I love milk and I know it's not milk, so it's not as fun, but it works for now!

Since we're talking about food, let's just line up some meals from this past week:

DIET

Breakfast - My blender has been packed up all week, so I haven't been up on the protein shakes like I'd like to be. Instead I've been eating those Atkins chocolate covered peanut butter bars with an Atkins milkshake or a handful of pork skins, or a few days I microwaved some bacon.

Lunch - Leftover rotisserie chicken, publix chicken salad with pork skins, hot dogs, and babybel cheese.

Snack - Babybel cheese, Atkins cardboard, or pork skins

Dinner - cheesy hot dogs with chili (no beans), rotisserie chicken, bacon and eggs, egg salad with pork skins.

I didn't eat quite as much last week because of getting sick, but that should HELP, right?

Something else I've been doing, I may have mentioned this before, is drinking flavored teas from Crystal Light. 0 carbs. I've been getting the peach and raspberry flavors. Really good! And they don't need splenda or truvia which Atkins says to add 1 carb for using.

EXERCISE

Taking boxes/bins up and down stairs and hills. That counts, right? Actually, Scott did a WHOLE lot more than I did, but we still worked hard. I also took Abby and her Aunt Katie out for walk a lot last weekend, which was really nice because it was so cool outside. This week I'll be exercising my arms with scrubbing floors and counters and everything else in the old apartment. Hopefully it will help!!


I'm still looking into phase 2 for Atkins. I still need to read more about it before I get to it. I want to have all my bases covered and be prepared when I start. I may start it next weekend!

New Short Term Goal

Looks like the family may get involved in the Huntsville Turkey Trot 5K this year on Thanksgiving Day. I want to be able to do well in it, so we'll see! It will also (hopefully) make me less hungry for Thanksgiving lunch that day (or make me feel like I've burned a lot of fat/calories so I can eat all I want). Haha. I'll try for the former!

Engaged in Weight Loss

What all Happened this Week

Alright! Week 1 is over and as of Sunday night (weigh-in night) I am at 238 lbs, which is about 4 lbs less than last week's 242. It seems like this Atkins stuff is really working! Which is excellent news because not only am I losing weight for the Disney Half-Marathon and 5K in February, I'll also be losing weight in order to look fabulous when I get married. That's right! Scott proposed to me on Saturday. I know not everyone wants to hear the whole sappy story of what happened, but if you do, just scroll down to the very bottom of this post and read. I will take this opportunity, however, to tell everyone that the wedding itself will probably be at least a year from now since we have some loose ends with school and job hunting to figure out. I will keep y'all posted, though, but probably not on this blog.

So what does engagement do to my diet? I'll tell you. It makes me want to GORGE myself. Icing covered sugar cookies never looked so good...and neither did hamburger cookies for that matter! The proposal happened (yes, happened, because it kind of hit me like a softball...wait) as we were about to enter our bible-study leaders' house to watch the Alabama game, and trying to think ahead, we brought avacados and pork skins for me to munch on during the game. The good news is, I was so busy with phone calls and text messages during most of the game that I didn't even have much of a chance to chow down. So it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Also....I FINISHED MY PAPER!!! So now that's out of the way, I can move on some and possibly get more into working out while studying for my orals until I hear back from my professors about this draft. It's possible I may need to brush up on this one since it's a brand new draft, but we'll just have to see! In the mean time, I've got tons to do!


Diet

Trying to keep your net carb in-take below 20 grams is hard work. It's mostly changing your mind-set. Every other diet I've been on has been low-fat and low-calories, but most of those foods are high in carbs! Interesting to think about. It's also hard to change! I tried getting the olive oil mayonnaise, but it turns out, it has 2 carbs whereas regular mayonnaise has 0. So you see how this kind of thing goes. Here are the things I've been living off of this past week.

Breakfast - Protein shake (atkins milkshake with a scoop of protein powder--tastes like chocolate milk!)

Sometimes I eat a half of a cheddarwurst sausage with half a cup of cottage cheese. Though good and filling, it takes up a good bit of my carbs for the day.

Lunch - Egg salad with pork skins, or hot dogs, or summer sausage and cheese squares, or publix chicken salad, and bacon with babybel GOUDA cheese!

Snack - babybel Gouda cheese or pork skins

Dinner - Guacamole, egg salad, pork skins, occasional frozen veggies, rotisserie chicken, cooked chicken, and I invented this cheesy sausage casserole, but I haven't perfected it, so I won't tell you how I did it yet.

LOTS of pork skins for substituting chips or bread. I've been eating so much, I went a bought this big boy:



EXERCISE

Still not any for right now. However, since I've moved in I've toured the fitness center which is nice and includes several new and semi-new pieces of equipment. Mainly a couple of ellypticals! Woohoo! Also an awesome pool that is suspiciously empty a lot of the time (I'm sure it's because it's getting cooler outside) and tennis courts that are kind of covered which is great so I don't have to worry about people seeing my hams jiggle while I play.

So now that the paper is complete (!!) I will have more time to go work out and this will possibly make me feel better about stepping up to Phase 2, but I'll need to read more about it before I actually cross into it.

Now, the engagement story...

Scott has gone to this bible study for several years and since we started dating, I've been going with him when I've been in town. It's lead by this couple, Angie and Ernie, who are so much fun and the people who come are absolutely great to be with. Ernie is a big Alabama fan, and has his whole downstairs man-cave set up with a big screen tv and theater seating. It is fabulous! Scott and I planned to go over for a little bit to watch the game on Saturday. On the way, Scott mentioned how much Angie and Ernie meant to him, especially when he first started going during a hard time in his life. I thought it was sweet to hear him talk about how much he loved and respected them, but I was so much more concerned about how rough I looked with my hair up and skin peeling. Looking back, I feel like a vain jerk, but at least I can say he loves me even when I look like crap! :-)

So we get to the house and he make sure I walk up the stairs to the back deck in front of him, nothing out of the ordinary because he is always a gentleman. We get to the top of the stairs, but before going inside he stopped me and said "You know how I was talking about how much Angie and Ernie meant to me in the car. Well, that's why I wanted to do this here." At that point the adrenaline struck, and I don't remember exactly what he said next, but he asked the only thing a guy could ask a girl when he's on one knee and slipping a ring on her finger. I asked him if he was sure and he said yes so there it is.

My favorite part of the story is what happened afterward. Ernie is a big gun enthusiast and I'm an interested learner. He also has a couple of older rifles which are especially interesting to me. I had seen one, but not the other. Not long after visiting with everyone who was there (some knew and some didn't) Ernie took me aside to show me their Japanese WWII rifle Angie's father acquired while fighting in WWII. So the second thing I held in my engaged hand besides Scott's hand was a Japanese WWII rifle. It was actually a great way to calm the nerves!

Also, not sure if everyone watched the game (once again I didn't see much because I was making phone calls until my phone died), but we almost lost the game, which apparently would've doomed our marriage, but since Bama pulled through, we have to get engaged every Saturday during the season. :-p

Ok, so there's the sappy story. Crazy! Still getting used to wearing something on that finger!

More about the diet and exercise next week!

Princess in Training (PIT)

So here we are again. Signed up and registered for the Disney Princess 5K and Half Marathon in Disney World in February. BUT, this time will be different! WHY?! Because instead of starting only 2 months before the big race, I'm starting NOW. That's right. September 20, 2010 marks the starting point of my road BACK to healthiness and I plan to exceed the previous results.

I bought a scale last night. It's a weight watcher scale which creates a profile for you, and possibly 9 other people (who the hell has 9 other people living with them...or worse, SHARING A BATHROOM?). Anyways, it records and tracks your progress as well as measures your weight, BMI, body fat percentage, and water percentage. Yeah, fancy. Did I want it that fancy? NOPE. It was just the only one in Publix and I didn't want to fight with the crazies at the "friendly" Douglasville neighborhood Wal-Mart. So what did it tell me?! That I'm fat. That's right $25 for an electronic appliance to tell me something I already knew. But seriously. I'm off the charts fat. Ready for it? I'm only going to give you the weight. 242 lbs. Gained it all back (and then some) after a summer of self-loathing during 2 more drafts of my paper which ultimately got me a free ticket to START ALL OVER AGAIN. Yep. Had to start from scratch. That took 2 pints of Ben & Jerry's and a bottle of Merlot 2 nights a week just to stomach the news.

Regardless, it's been an ongoing struggle between keeping in shape and graduate school, and instead of constantly pitting one versus the other, I think I've found a compromise!

So what's the plan?

#1. DIET. This time, just to get the numbers down and ready to run, I'm going on the Atkins diet. Sure, I understand it's not everyone's favorite. You either have a friend that yo-yo dieted with it or you saw on the Biggest Loser that Bob, the trainer, HATES it, or you took a health class which said it's not the best idea. Well, after doing a little research, I've found that understanding how it works is the key. The danger is with people who don't read about the process first and then go out and try to kill themselves without eating carbs for 6 months while overloading on some bacon and gravy. Sure some of them look great, but DAMN. Here's what I've learned:

Phase 1/ Induction of the Atkins Diet requires you to live off of no more than 20 net carbs a day. What are net carbs? That is the gram amount of carbs minus the gram amount of fiber (if I misunderstood this part, someone let me know ASAP, but this is how I understood it). The point of doing this is so that your body will begin the process of Ketosis in which your body burns fat (including your own!) instead of burning primarily carbohydrates for energy. This will be particularly helpful since until I can move out of my current hell-hole apartment in the next month, I really don't have much of a chance to exercise, but that's a whole other story. But here is a list Akins' website provides for foods to eat during this phase. The website also gives you a meal planner with plenty of recipes. It's just a really good source of information altogether.

Phase 1 generally lasts 2 weeks, though you can go longer if you like. Most people burn up to 15 lbs in those two weeks. I personally would like to stay on Phase 1 for several weeks. When I'm ready for Phase 2 and the gradual introduction of carbs back into the diet, I'll be sure to update! Right now I've got the app on my phone and I'm red-ta-go!

My only concern about induction is this "Atkins Flu" I keep hearing about that lasts a couple of days, where your body is switching gears and going into Ketosis. Apparently, you don't feel sick, you just feel really tired for like 2 or 3 days. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but I'll let you know how it goes.

#2. EXERCISE. Ok, let's be honest. I got nuthin' here yet. Here's the dealio. I canceled my gym membership a couple of months ago thinking my job was going to be ending after the first week in October and I wasn't using the facility anyways. Well, SURPRISE! Two weeks ago we learned our jobs are renewed for another year. For me it's another 6 months, because after I graduate in December...and I WILL graduate in December...under the terms I was hired, I have 120 days before they have to let me go. It's a long bureaucratic story. But that's fine! With my degree I'll be able to apply for plenty more jobs and will definitely find something before that deadline. It never hurts to be able to work a job while looking for another one, whether you're in a recession or not.

So why not run around the neighborhood? Well, the neighborhood I moved into last year has since become The 'Hood and it's not all sunshine and daisies anymore...which is really a shame. After 2 shootings in broad daylight this summer at the entrance of the complex, I'm just plain uncomfortable with the idea of running out there anymore. It's really annoying when you can't get into your apartment complex because the police have to finish mapping out the shell casings. Not cool. So the apartment complexes I'm looking at all have pools and FITNESS CENTERS. Yay! So this way, I won't have to pay extra for gym membership, and I won't have to run with a helmet, mace, and a bullet proof vest (I hear they're heavy).

So there is a lot going on, but I know I can make this work and I'm tired of putting this off while I watch my stomach line get bigger and bigger and my pants feel smaller and smaller. I refuse to buy any more fat clothes just because I'm growing out of my current ones! That's just ridiculous. Being this big is just a whole other stress in itself and I don't think ignoring it is really helping me get anything else done. So I'm going to fix it.

Afterthoughts:
I'm trying to think of all the other things that weigh 240 lbs....

-my backpack in high school
-the metal desk in the office at work
-Mark Ingram while holding his Heisman...