Kathleen's Adventures

Yes, I have been "on a diet" for 8 weeks now and weigh approximately 1.5 lbs less than I did 8 weeks ago. How's that for fun? I am beyond frustrated, I really am. I have eaten an average of 1621 calories a day (...everything I have put in my mouth, including cliff blocks, gatorade , infinit , etc) since January 8, burned an average of 480 calories a day through exercise, and burned another 1425 calories a day just being me (according to the most recent RMR test, my old test said I would have burned 1775 calories a day, and the most recent DEXA testing at UT said 1500 minimum a day, but that is beside the point because I'm not losing even using the lowest number). By those numbers I should have lost at least 4 lbs in this time, but no. Not happening. Even worse, I weigh more than I did in October, November, and December. How does that work? I wasn't trying to lose weight then, and was barely even working out. I was eating more then too. There is not a single meal...

Wow - I had a pretty crazy weekend, and even just typing the title to this blog post tells me that. My weekend started with a nice hunk 'o Zoe's chocolate cake complete with a birthday candle in it for breakfast. Jon and I exchanged birthday/Valentines day presents while I happily ate my cake for breakfast and then we packed up to head to Austin for two nights. You would have thought we were going away for two weeks by the way my car was packed, but oh well. I guess that is the beauty of driving somewhere as opposed to flying. We spent the rest of Saturday walking to packet pickup, eating lunch, and getting ready for the race. We probably walked 3-4 miles that day and it made me miss Austin so much. It is so nice to be able to just walk everywhere. I have organized a pasta dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse for the last 2 years in downtown Austin and could not pass up the opportunity to do it again this year. We had about 65 people and it was a fabulous time. Friends from Houston Fi...

You might be a little devilish. Then at other times you might just need a poptart. But then, you might end up feeling like a pig. I see a mixture of all three in my very-near future (after all, tomorrow is my birthday and I can do what I want to)!

I had a great weekend last weekend - things may slowly be looking up for me in the health and training department, but I still plan to be walking on egg shells for quite a while longer. Saturday morning several of us headed to Katy Mills to do the Puddle for the Ducks organized ride. The route we were going to do was 46 miles and I wanted 50, so before the ride started I did 2 loops of parking lot at Katy Mills - it actually worked out quite nicely! No one is in that parking lot at 7am on a Saturday. Shellie, Augie and I all pretty much stayed together through the ride. It wasn't that bad until the last 15 miles or so. We were heading due east and the wind was coming straight out of the south...at 24 mph! We complain about wind a lot, and it is windy here a lot in the Spring, but honestly it is usually in the 15-20mph range (which is bad enough!). Sustained winds of 24mph over any length of time is pretty high...nearing Arizona conditions! A cross wind that heavy was pretty tolling...

So Tuesday morning I had my resting metabolic rate (RMR) tested. This measures how many calories I burn daily, just to keep my body alive. I had it tested previously, about 5 years ago at UT. I was 23 then, and weighed almost exactly the same as I do now (+/- 1-2 lbs). I was tested in May, and had run my first marathon earlier that February. I tested at a RMR of 1475 calories/day. They said to add about 300 calories/day for a normal desk job and normal daily activities, not including exercise. So, that had me at 1775 calories a day. That has been the number I've been using for the last 5 years. When I got retested Tuesday morning, I was left in a state of shock and feeling like I can never eat again. I was tested at 1296, and this person said to only add 130 cal/day for normal activities, so I'm at 1426. That is 350 calories less than what I thought I was burning. I've been eating an average of 1600 calories a day since the new year (about 1400 on weekdays, more on we...

Well, not really funny. The opening line on Grey's Anatomy tonight: "Any first year med student knows that a raised heart rate is a sign of trouble." Thanks for reminding me.

Interesting day actually... I also had a visit with a nutritionist before that to get my BMR (amount of calories you burn a day) tested...more on that in another post. I'm still in shock that it seems like I can no longer eat anything if I want to lose weight. Anyway, today I had autonomic testing in the med center. There are only 30-40 similar labs in the nation, so I'm "lucky" to be close to one. Right now, I have a few crop circle looking things left on my arm and leg and a small burn on my leg from the first test. This one was where they hooked "capsules" up to a few places on my arm and leg and infused medicine through my skin that made my sweat glands go to town, and then they measured something...who knows what. All I know is it was five minutes of constant "ant bite feeling" on those 3-4 places. That was fun. The next few tests were just kind of whatever - lots of blood pressure and heart rate evaluation. The next-to-last test, though, I ap...

I can't believe I forgot to mention the "hazards" of Sunday's run!! When I was coming back from the furthest part of the trail for the first time on Sunday, in a very marshy area, I see "CAUTION: Alligator and Snake Habitat." Nice. I'd never seen that before. Do you think they cover it up during the race so 500 people don't freak out? To my left was marsh, and to my right, just past a chain link fence, was a cemetery. Perfect, I thought. If an alligator comes for me, I'm over the fence in no time. It is sad when you are happy there is a cemetery to escape to! There were 2-3 other "CAUTION: Snakes" signs around that I swear I've never seen there before. Or maybe the animals are extra cranky after Ike. I only saw one little innocent bunny rabbit during my whole run, so no wild animal encounters for me, but I heard plenty of things scurrying off into the brush/water/marsh as I ran along. I chose not to look any deeper into what those ...

I forgot to mention how mad I got on our ride Saturday morning when a guy who clearly didn't know his bike laws yelled at me. This was a 2 lane highway with shoulders on either side. However, the shoulder surface was awful and not exactly rideable . So, I was riding as close to the right side of the driving lane as I could, which is perfectly legal. At times I was even on the white line, but not on the shoulder. A group of men came through and started yelling "passing on your RIGHT" (for those that don't know, it is just like driving, you are supposed to pass on the left). Then he continues to yell at me and say that I really need to get over so people aren't passing me on the right. Before I had time to tell him to know his bike laws, he was gone. Fine with me if he enjoyed riding in the gravel pit of a shoulder - it was all his. The funnier thing was the fastest riders were coming back on this same road by then, and you could assume they were perhaps so...

Got 'em. Running at 11am near the coast when it is 80 degrees outside will do it to you! That was Sunday, but back to Saturday. Saturday morning, a few of us headed 75 miles north to Coldspring , TX for "Bike Through the Forest and Hills." They sure got the hills part right, well, and the forest for that matter. It was a beautiful ride, but the hills at the end were just awful. I did not realize until over half way through that I had been in a tailwind, and would be in a headwind the rest of the way. I also did not realize I had gone down more than up on the first half. The second half had a good stretch of 10 miles or so with not really any downhills at all, and tons of uphills. Then you got a tiny break for a couple of miles, but then, miles 30-33 (the last miles) were the worst of all! Uphill, into the wind. At one point I was in my last gear, at 30 something RPM not sure if I was going to keep my bike from falling over or not. Yes, I'm in awful bike shape, yes thi...