Running alone doesn’t keep the weight off!!

I know this might sound impossible but it is sooooo accurate.  Running/exercise will not keep you from gaining weight.  It can help you out a lot in the good fight for healthy but standing by itself it will not do it.  EATING! is the determining factor.  I mean you can gain, lose, or stay the same without exercise.  You might not be as healthy overall but your weight can be stablized or moved in the direction you desire.  Of course the best combination is using both exercise and proper eating to lose or maintain weight.  This is a hard lesson for me as a runner.  I dreamed of the possibility that running could offer me a carefree life regarding food and treats.  How far from reality my thinking was.

It is very easy to eat more than you burn while exercising.  Even after running 50 miles you can eat more calories than you burned even before you go to bed that night.  Here are some examples from real life calorie expenditures that I have experienced and what I could (and have) eat to still be able to gain.

• 6 miles @ 7:28 pace= 857 calories.  My normal is to eat 3 maple bars.  This adds up to 1,380 calories.  I actually do this too!!!
• Marathon @ 10:19 pace= 3,617 calories.  After this last marathon I ate: 32 oz of Mt. Dew @ 440 calories.  I then ate two sausages with buns: 1,100 calories.  I also had a two scoop ice cream cone at B&B: 565 calories.  So that is 2105 calories within about 2 hours of the marathon.  This does not include the 1,400 calories I ate during the marathon nor does it include my dinner and snacks later in the day.  So adding what I wrote up I have already consumed as many calories as I have burned just 2 hours after the race.

This are real life examples and it is here to prove to myself that eating is far more important in weight issues than is exercise for me.  I can do the exercise but I need to focus on proper eating again.  It is a myth that endurance  and vigorous exercise makes you hungry.  Good exercise actually supresses hunger.  It does not however supress the thoughts of entitlement to food though.  Hopefully you enjoyed a small journey into the depths of my life. HAHAHAHAHAHA

Opening up about 2 food/health issues I have been thinking about.

I went to my weight watchers meeting last night.  I almost did not go since I did a marathon last weekend.  The only problem is that I did a marathon the weekend before so I skipped that week’s meeting too.  I just figured that it did not matter how much I weighed or what happened, I needed to go the meeting.  I wasn’t going to weigh-in at first but I did anyway and I did not do so good in that area.  This will be ok though.  NO need to panic.  NO need for guilt.  NO need to give up.  NO need for any negative behavior actually.  What is the meaning of a bad weigh-in anyway:  It just means that I ate to much.  That is it.  Plain and simple.  I ate more than I burned.  Basic stuff.  Modification is necessary if I want to go the other direction.

During the meeting while the leader was talking she asked us if anyone was struggling.  I raised my hand so that I could share.  Usually she will always call on me to talk so that newer people can hear my story but this time she did not because she could sense my frustration.  Not with the program but with myself.  My thoughts were focused on two areas of concern to me.

• My addictive nature
• My need for self-reflection and some rigidness.

The first issue actually begins to become one with the second issue the more I think on these things.  This is me.  This is how I work.  This is what my brains, emotions, etc. do during the normal course of my daily life.  Because of my running but mostly because of the long events that I do, I give myself liberty to eat what I want after I do runs of 20 miles or longer.  This is fine and dandy but can I handle this considering who I am on the inside.  The answer to this question is an overwhelming NO.

Look who’s fat now!

I want to express a particular feeling/set of emotions that I have regarding people who make fun of you when you are over weight.  I am not talking about when the make fun of you behind your back, I am talking about when they say “fat stuff” right to your face.  I have a person in my life who said things to my face like:

• Hey fat boy
• Mr. fat belly
• Turtle man (because I walked slow)
• Lard Ass
• Lazy ass
• Big boy
• Big belly boy

I don’t particularly like these comments as I am pretty sure that most of you would not either.  In fact, they used to really hurt my feelings a lot.  I never confronted the person because of my passive nature.

NOW THEY ARE THE “FAT” ONES.  The certain person is now way over weight and I am the skinny person in their life.  Since this person has low esteem or whatever, they still make fun of me as being lazy or “skin and bones” or “a wafe”.  I want sooooooo bad to tell this person that they are fat.  That they are all the multitude of names that they once called me.  That they have no control over their eating.  I want to make this person feel bad for all the crap that they did.  I want them to get there pay back and realize what they did.

Will I do this????  No I won’t.  It is wrong to be calling people names like they called me.  Everyone has their own issues and obesity was one of mine and now it is one of theirs.  This person will have to deal with it and it is hard enough to take being obese even if nobody calls you names.  I will be bigger then they were.  I never say anything about this persons weight even though I want to.

That is all for now because that person is coming….. HAHAHAHA

No WW meeting today.

I am no longer going to WW meetings on Tuesday I think.  I am going to go back to wednesdays as I think it will bolster my efforts a bit more than the other meeting.  No offense to the Tuesday leader/meeting, but the Wednesday has a “special something” that makes me feel more motivated. 

EATING!

Today I am on track with my eating SO FAR.  I am hoping to keep it up unti l go to bed and then do it again tomorrow.  I am so tired in so many ways.  My job and the people there are REALLY getting to me.  This is no excuse but it is an underlying factor in my improper eating.  Most of my bad eating is related to feeling better about something and of couse it never works out like that though.  So I see that I have been feeling crapy about work so have been eating badly to feel better.  So if I stop eating badly to feel better what do I do then.  Just keep feeling bad day after day with no remedy.  I suppose I could leave my job but it is more complicated then just leaving.  I guess that is the special circumstance that I am in.

Kind of cool.

It has been brought to my attention by Seujan that some people in the Seattle area and reading the blog.  This was very exciting to me when I read he comment this weekend.  It is so cool that in such a close neighbooring city there are people who actually read this blog.  She is a Triathlete and talks/posts about her training.  Pretty cool if you ask me.

Another good marathon experience

My 16th marathon (The Foot Traffic Flat Marathon) went very well.  It was a hot day but it did not bother me at all.  It was a smooth and controlled effort which produced the desired training effect: Run 30 miles on tired legs that are not yet recovered from last weeks 36 miles.  I finished the marathon portion of my 30 mile run in 4:29 with negative splits meaning I did the second half faster than the first. The marathon was much larger than I thought it was going to be so it was festive and fun.  The course was very beautiful as is snaked through the farms of Sauvie Island.  All and all it was a great experience which helped increase my fitness for the 100 miler.

My next race will be on July 25th at the Crystal Mountain Ski Resort.  This will be a 50 mile trail run with around 17,000 ft of elevation change.  It is a tough race but it will also end up being a good experience regardless of how it goes.  The race is called the White River 50 Miler.

Eating!

I am not eating very well guys.  i can’t seem to get back in the flow of things like I was before.  I pisses me off and yet I like it at the same time.  Of course there is the cursed fear that haunts me regarding gaining all of the weight back too.  that sucks a lot.  Mainly I still do very well at work (about 85% of my points for the day) but when I get off work or after a run I tend to eat peperroni and junk like that.  I tend not to count my points at night which is not good at all.

Just thought I would check in.

Marathon #16 en la manana.

Well, it is time to hit the road again.  I will be doing my 16th marathon on July 4th, 2009.  It is a very flat marathon which serves strawberry shortcake at the end along with hotdogs and such.  I will be running 5 miles prior to the start of the marathon and I will be taking the early start option at 6:15 a.m.  I am looking extra forward to this marathon for some reason.  It is right near my home on and island that has lots of nature on it.

I should be a great race and a fun time with good people

Marathon 15 was a success.

The marathon/training run went very well.  I got up at 3 a.m., ate my food, had my coffee and then headed out for my first 10 miles for the day.  Right after I finished my 10 miler I went over to the starting line to wait for the official start.  There were around 180 something people running the marathon and a multitude were participating in the half-marathon and half-ironman distance triathlon.

I paced very well throughout.  I did a 4:1 run/walk ratio with 10 minute miles for running portions and easy walking for the walking portions.  This was very manageable for the 36 mile distance.  I finished the marathon in 4:34 and my pace for the entire 36 miles was in the mid 10’s.  I was very pleased.  I ate about 300 calories per hour, took 3 electrolyte tablets per hour, and drank around 21 ounces of wate per hour.  This intake allowed me to do the last 2 miles at a 7:11 pace.

It was in the mid 80’s temperature wise when I finished.  THe heat did not bother me much although I could “feel” it. HAHAHAHAHA  After the marathon my sister and I went to the town of Bend and went shopping for a couple of hours before hitting the couch to watch movies and eat for the rest of the evening.  It was a wonderful weekend and the marathon organization and course were just perfect.  I would recommend this as a destination marathon for anyone interested.  Great race.

I will be skipping my WW meeting because my mom has had her hip replaced and I am going to go visit her in the hospital instead.

Marathon 15 this weekend and my weigh-in.

I had my weigh-in last night.  I am pretty sure I am going to switch back to my old meeting.  It is just vastly more inspirational.  I don’t need knowledge really, I know what to do.  It is the fire and inspiration that is needed to stay the course really.  THe facts are the facts, but the will to keep on keeping on has to come from something other than the facts usually.

Anyways, I lost 3 pounds so I am down to just 2 lbs over my goal range.  I was happy with that.

This weekend I will have my 15th marathon.  It is the Pacific Crest Marathon and it is part of a weekend full of events in Sunriver, Oregon.  There is an Olympic Distance Triathlon, marathon, half-marathon, 10k, 5k, and 1 mile for the kids.  There will be around 4000 people all together at the events.  It will be a fun time.  So I will be heading off to Sunriver on Friday after work and my marathon is on Saturday.  It is really a “training run” for me as I have to run 10 miles just prior to the start in order to get my 36 mile long run in for the day.

Yesterday was just fine.

Well, I did well on WW and exercising yesterday.  No donuts, no junk food, no laziness.  I did great.

I packed a good and normal lunch.  It was healthy and filling and lasted me until about 4:30 pm.  After work I ran to the track near by and did my 14×400 meter reps at 5k pace.  This was a great workout and fun.  I met a nice guy there that was the track coach for the junior for 20 years.  I really enjoyed talking with him.  I burned 812 calories in 50 minutes of running.  Pretty good I would say.

Once I got home I stayed on the right track too.  I ended up eating 10 points worth of food at home which ended up putting just where I needed to be for the day as far as WW points go.

How to gain weight on weight watchers.

Hello everyone.  I know I have not been posting to much but I just don’t feel like it lately.  I still greatly appreciate the comment that keep coming in as they are very encouraging to me.  I had my weigh-in last night at my WW meeting.  I was pretty confident going in that I had lost at least some of the weight that I had gained over the last two weeks.  I was chipper as I walked to the scale.  Once I got on the scale all the “chipperness” went away very quickly.  190 lbs.  I gained another 3 something pounds over the last week.  I was sure that I was going to lose.  I could say that it was some random and odd reason that I gained but I am sure it is just the way I have been eating AND THINKING!!!  There are no excuses whatsoever for the gain.  I have been running a lot.  I have been working in the yard a lot.  I have been EATING A LOT.  That is that!!  That is how a person can gain weight even while training for a 100 mile endurance running event.  SUCKS!!!

Here is how you too can gain weight on weight watchers:

• Listen to the lies that you can have a little here and one of that, etc. 
• Believe that exercise will always make up for bad food choices.   I truly tested this over the last three weeks.  I took the hypothesis of “if you run a lot you don’t have to be careful with what you eat” and truly tested it.
• Strictly count your points all day long until the evening and then stop counting.
• Don’t go to some of your meetings.
• Eat mass quantities of watermelon with the mindset that fruit is good for you.
• Give sugary snacks enough room to creep into the door.
• Don’t be strict with your choices.
• Keep telling yourself that you are doing great when you know you are not.
• Eat in order to feel better. 
• Don’t prepare for your weeks food choices.
• Don’t bring a nice lunch to work.

There you have it.  I have been doing all of these A LOT in the last three weeks.  I am depressed about it.  Not so depressed that I can’t see the truth of the situation but depressed  because of the cognitive dissonance that is occuring (This means I am not acting in accordance to my beliefs).  I will lose the weight because I am excellent at losing weight but I tested the overwhelming concensus that if you are an endurance athlete you have much more liberty.

NOT TRUE!  YOU STILL NEED TO DO YOUR PROGRAM JUST THE SAME.  EATING THE SAME OR LESS THAN WHAT YOU BURN.

My last weigh-in results.

OK, I have been losing weight steadily regardless of what or how much I have been eating.  I got down to 182 for the weigh-in prior to my last.  I have been weighing in and going to my meetings very regularly as normal.  THis last week I gained 5.6 lbs.  Yeah, that is a lot to gain.  It was actually over a two week period.  I was not surprised at all as most of you won’t be either.  My last couple posts relate much to my weight gain.  I weigh now about 2 lbs over my 185 max.  Not so bad really.  I will lose it in no time I am sure.  I am back on track pretty much although not perfectly at all.

This weekend I re-did my entire irrigation system at my home.  It is not completely finished.  I will just have to do some tweeking of it over the next months.

I also did two long runs.  10 miles on Saturday at 7:40 pace and 15 miles on Sunday at 7:45 pace.  Well, I take that back.  Sunday I did that pace for 13 miles and then the hills were SOOOO steep on the last two miles that I could not keep that pace so I walked up the hills in ultra-marathon fashion like I will do in my next 50 miler in July.

bybybyby now

You better watch out.

YOU ARE NOT, NOR WILL YOU EVER BE, IMMUNE TO TRIPPING, BACK-SLIDING, MESSING UP, GOING OFF PROGRAM, GAINING WEIGHT!!!!

This is just a simple fact.  There is a somewhat common phenomenon where I work.  There are a couple of positions at the company that utilize a large band-saw.  These employees are experts at using this saw.  They have used it in the same fashion thousands of times.  They can use this saw with there eyes closed.  But one thing is for sure.  THE MINUTE THAT THEY STOP RESPECTING THE SAW THEY LOSE A FINGER.   That is right.  They might not lose the entire finger but they will lose a good portion of it.  Why?  Because they stopped humbly respecting the fact that the saw does not care how good you are at using it.  It is going to cut what ever touches the blade.  So it goes with the health journey.  Eating bad and not exercising will take its toll regardless of how good you are at the journey itself.  You can’t change the rules.  Eating more than you burn will cause you to gain.  Eating crap will make you feel like crap.  Binges, donuts, large quantities of food will all make you move just a little further from health.  It might be slowly, but it will happen if you stop humbly respecting the fact that you need to use caution at all times.  Like with the saw.  New people never get hurt on the saw because they are scared to death of getting cut but the longer they use the saw without getting cut the more comfortable they get in their own abilities. 

Never stop being careful for your own health.

I just could not do it.

This weekend I had a 20 miler to do.  I was to run the first ten at my long run pace and the second ten at my marathon race pace.  It was a routine long run.  I have done it many many times just as it was scheduled.  This time I just could not do it.  I ran one mile and was feeling completely exhausted.  I felt really bad about not doing it.  My coach even told me not to force it and to just do it next weekend but I felt horrible.  I was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO tired.  Even that one mile was totally difficult to finish.  Here is why I think it might have been so hard:

1. I stayed up until 1 am the night before.  This is very late even though I still got 7 hours of sleep.
2. I have not been eating well lately.  Lots of sugar.  Sugar is bad and short lived.
3. I have not been getting much sleep in genereal each day.
4. I have wokred A LOT in my yard while still getting in all my workouts.
5. I have just not been doing WW that good lately.

I hope to get this 20 miler in today but I am not sure if I will. It just might not work out.

Gaining weight, WW, and …………

Enjoying the first fire in our new fire pit. Chowing some watermelon.

I am doing great and I am doing bad and I am doing ok.  In general I have been doing great.  I have been having a great time with my wife over the past month doing fun things.  I had a horrible time at work for awhile as I crept up onto a huge audit that I was going to have at the end of may.  Now it’s over and I ACED the audit without any problems and got a very very high score.    I have been doing really well at my running too until this weekend that is.  My training is going on as intended and I have been improving nicely.  I have been enjoying it a lot too.

WHAT ABOUT WEIGHT WATCHERS!!!

I don’t want to be honest.   I don’t want to tell it like it is.   I have to thought because you guys are cool.  I have to because I am going to weigh-in tomorrow regardless of what I want.

I swear I have probably had the hardest stretch of time on Weight Watchers in the last month.  It has been more difficult than any other stretch of time since I started program on December 13th, 2007.  I am not lying either.  Not even one day has been as hard or bad as the last month.  I just have not been doing that well with my eating and planning.  THE PROBLEM IS THAT I HAVE STILL BEEN LOSING WEIGHT AT EVERY WEIGH-IN THAT I GO TO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  At first I thought that this was great but in reality it is not.  Not in my opinion at least.  Why?  Because to be doing not so good on program and still be losing weight is a sub-conscious license to keep doing not so good.  Permission to eat junk.  Permission to not count because “it’s working”!  I know for a fact that it is going to catch up with me.  I know for a fact that it is going to bring a significant gain at the scale.  It might even be this week I don’t know.

I DON’T LIKE IT ANYWAY!

I don’t like how not doing so good on Weight Watchers makes me feel.  I feel more tired.  I feel more guilty.  I feel more nervous about failing in the journey.  I feel more helpless against the fat mind.  I feel like I am not healthy anymore.  I am still very healthy of course but I am walking the line.  I need to step away from the line.  I don’t even want to see the line in fact.  I want the line to be so far away that it and it’s danger non-existent to me.

I never weigh at home but this morning I did.  I weighed 190.  That was without clothes.  This was very discouraging.  This was very enlightening.  This was reality.  This was fact that disolved the deceptive power of my justifications to not do so well on program.

Basically I feel like pooooooooo about how I have been eating since the 40 miler.  I know I will get back on track (Starting today) but I still don’t like how it has been going.

Blast from the past! Hiking my first hike.

Well, this last weekend my wife and I went for a hike.  We went to Angel’s Rest in the Columbia River Gorge.  This was the first hike that we ever did.  In the first experience we got really grumpy because it was SOOOOOOO HARD to make it the 2.3 miles to the top of the hike.  It seemed so straight up and difficult.  It was hot and we did not enjoy it.  Sure the memories were good and all and we look back with laughter now, but at the time is sucked.  In fact, I was sucking wind the whole way. HAHAHA

The second time around it was a breeze for me.  I never even got short of breathe even once.  It was no problem walking up the steep hill to the top of the beautiful landscape to look out on the Gorge.  I was actually able to enjoy the scenery this time.  I took some pics so hopefully you will enjoy it too.

You can even see my loose skin in the last pic. HAHAHA

He’s/It’s not gone!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s right.  The fat mind or fat guy is not gone.  Even after 14 races at marathon or longer distances.  Even after 2.5 years of great success.  Even after learning to live life the healthy way.

THE FAT MIND/GUY IS NOT GONE!!

So damn bad too.  I only wish that this A-hole would leave forever and disappear.  It would be nice to not have to battle it out so often.  It would be nice to REALLY WANT to make nice and healthy choices rather than feeling like I should make them.  It would be a great relief to not have to listen to the fat mind ask for food to calm the negative emotions that tend to build up inside.  That is all it is really, a medicine to calm my negative BS that bothers the heck out of me.  Do you think a donut or candy bar is really gonna help make my woes disappear.  Do you think that even one bite of anything will even alleviate one ounce of the pain of coming up short.  NO, NO, NO!  If hunger is not the problem then food is not the answer.  I just can’t believe it sometimes though.  Sometimes my first inclination and thought is to eat some sugary fattyness to make myself feel better.  Heck, I even want it to make me go from happy to REALLY happy.  In the end it just brings more guilt and dis-satisfaction.  Food can’t do it.

Speed vs. long and slow.

I have realized something of late regarding running and the training methods used to improve it.  There is a big difference in running to lose weight and running to improve conditioning.  Any and all running will burn calories very well and contribute immensely to weight loss.  It is a fantastic activity which in the end pretty much burns more calories than any other activity.  As you know, I used the Galloway method to start out with my running and finish many marathons.  This method is founded on long, slow, and steady paced running to develop endurance.  This worked wonders for me and allowed me to stick with running and accomplish great things that I never imagined possible.  But where am I at now……………..

Now I no longer use the Galloway method for my running.  Well, I kind of do in a way for the longer ultra-marathons but not so much during the training.  In the running world many people use the wording “high quality workout”.  This basically means fast running whether it be 400 meters at 5k pace, a tempo 6 miler with 3 of those miles at 10K pace, or maybe some time trials at short distances.  This quality work is something that I never really did in the past.  Now it is a very important aspect of my training and it has improved my overall fitness beyond belief.  I still do looooong runs to develop endurance for races 26.2 and beyond, but the quality work also benifits these races as well.  Running a faster mile will bring down the average pace that you can run longer distances. 

Here is how I see things now as I am evolving in my understanding of running.  I needed to the long and steady and slow running for the start of my journey.  I needed to know mentally that I could be a runner in the first place.  But looking back, if I would have started out running the way I am now I would be much further ahead of where I am today.  The Galloway method got me into running and the “quality method” is improving me I guess.  It is an interesting journey to say the least.

Note to self!!

Dear me,

Don’t ever freakin listen to people who tell you to relax on your eating.  To relax on  your fitness.  To relax or to take a break from the healthy life.  Just smile at them and tell them that you just might.  Then walk away and rebuke those dang thoughts and tell yourself that what you just heard was bullshit! (sorry for the language).  

When people say the following things, don’t even consider them as even a half of a truth:

• Oh you ran 20 miles you can eat that.
• Gotta have a little here and there.
• It is just fine to take a week off from exercise, I mean you have been doing sooooo good.
• One won’t hurt you…..
• Don’t be so hard on yourself about this Weight Watchers thing
• Your in great shape you don’t need to watch what you eat THAT much.

Just remember, this is all bull crap.  These kind words of wisdom will lead you right back to weighing 307 lbs and to an early death.  It will lead you back to being a fat guy with a skinny beautiful wife who just wishes that you would live healthy so that you can be with her for a long time.  It will take you right back to not being able to walk from a parking stall a long ways off.  It will lead you right back to hating the way you look with a passion.

You know what it takes to stay fit, strong, healthy, lean.  Not a single person can do it for you.  Only you can do it.