Caffeine

See, Coffee is good for me.

Body Fat

I did the body fat calculator and I am now at 20% according to my calculations. This tips me over in to "Athlete". I do not feel like an athlete. I feel slow and heavy and week. Especially after yesterday's WOD. I missed round 6 because I had to stop to throw up. Yes, I threw up again. I know it is associated with the heat. My body does not handle heat well at all. I now know I need to soak my t-shirt in water before the WOD now.

That is besides the point right now. What are our views of fitness in this country? I wonder if our charts have adjusted to our waist size. Or do I have a distorted body image. Maybe it is a little of both but this is the chart:

Description	Women	Men
Essential fat	10–13%	2–5%
Athletes	14–20%	6–13%
Fitness	21–24%	14–17%
Average	25–31%	18–24%
Obese	32%+	25%+

I am aiming for 15%. I am hoping by that point you will be able to see my abs.

Ford Modeling agency has created a new division of plus size models. Although I agree with this article that these women do not look plus size to me (I really do not think an 8 is a plus size). They do not look fit.

Pain

There is a new article in the New York Times about pain. I do not really agree with her. I tend to lean on the side of Peter Sagal; who said:

“What is it about the pain of endurance sports that’s fun?” he asked me. He added that when asked why he keeps running races, “I say...um...because the pain is sort of the point? Because it’s good to push yourself to the point of breaking?

“My thesis is that the pain isn’t an obstacle to achievement so much as part of the achievement. We actually want to suffer.”

The writer of the article believes that he is just referring to fatigue and not pain.

When I ran my marathon I felt fatigue and a little bit of knee pain but mostly fatigue. I pushed through, mainly because I wanted the gold Mickey Mouse head medal. I seem to be willing to stop a lot quicker when it is fatigue rather than pain. Pushing through pain is an accomplishment.

You might think I am crazy saying this, but it is true, when it comes to me. Pain signifies weakness in me and fatigue is just needing a rest. When I was younger I would give up on things as soon as they got difficult or painful unless I really wanted it. When I was 29 and fat I decided I was not going to do that any more. I wanted to be someone stronger than I was.

This does get me in trouble some times. Last year I tore my radial ligament in my right wrist while doing a jerk and then went on to do the WOD (which included pull-ups). Then I did the WOD the next day as well. The pain was pretty bad at this point so I went to the doctor and this stubbornness led to surgery.

I try very hard these days to recognize pain I can push through and pain that I should not push through. Good vs Bad pain is a tough thing to recognize. This brings me back to the article's first question about why do you run? I run to get stronger and faster and pain helps me know when that is happening. Pain is one of my motivators.

5lbs

I have lost 12lbs of weight since November. I do not know what my actual fat loss is because I did not get it checked before I started actually trying to loose weight. I say actually because the other times were sort of halfhearted attempts. I am guessing it is about a 3% drop in body fat right now because of this.

So, onto my thoughts for the day. I am back to wondering how much fat I actually need to loose. I am not trying to be lazy and eat more chocolate (although that is appealing). I am trying to limit my self loathing a bit. I know I do not look good in a bathing suit right now. I tried one on last weekend and at Tommy Hilfiger and then had to fight the urge to jump off of something very high. This is especially sad because my favorite thing in the world after Husband and Gurtie is water. It is a shame that the outfit you need to get in the water make you so miserable.

As of this morning I weigh 125.4. I think I need to weigh 115 to be okay with my body. I came up with 115 because that is close to what I was when I first moved to NC from Chicago (NC makes me fat).

I found this website today. According to it my lean body weight is 100.915 lbs. That makes me 26 lbs of fat. So, now I have to figure out how much body fat I actually want. I am going to go with 15 % because that puts me right in the on the lower end of athlete (and we all want to be athletes). I followed this formula from the same website just a different page:

126.4 pounds x 0.15 = 18.96 pounds body fat
100 pounds lean body mass + 18.96 pounds body fat = 119 pounds goal weight.

That isn't too far off from my original 115. Okay, 7 lbs is what I am aiming for.

By the way this was all spurred by this post about the 5lbs of fat model.

A wager

I have been fighting off a cold for the last couple of days. I have a sore throat and feel kind of icky, mostly just really weak. Or, ummmm weaker than normal. When I am not feeling well my inclination is to eat not so great food. Food like Mac and Cheese and pizza and large quantities of egg noodles in a very small amount of chicken broth. This week I have not done that at all.

The reason is not because I have suddenly become a well behaved individual that eats like an adult. Nope, the reason is that there is money riding on it. I have made a bet with the Wiggen Clan that I will follow my diet to the tee or pay them $50 a week. This bet goes both ways so feel free to offer them a cupcake. I am just kidding leave them a lone or be supportive. Do not give them a hard time.

This was Dori's idea and it was a good one. I might have eaten at pie pushers for an extra $10 but not for $50. The cheat has to hurt. It is a stick approach. Why a stick rather than a carrot? Because I will ignore the carrot when offered a delicious bag of fried clams.

If you want to do this to yourself you can go to StickK.

Alligators, Fire and Electrocution

I have not posted in a while. I have had a great deal of change going on in my life and a lot of photography work. I have been fairly good about working out but not so great on the diet end. I have found that the best thing I can do for myself is to have the week planned. As much as cooking all day on Sunday bums me out, it is the only way that I stay on track.

When I do not plan out my food, I forget to eat until it is too late. What I mean by too late is that I go from fine to insanely hungry in no time. This makes me panic for some reason. The result is a trip to a vending machine or eating whatever is on hand.

A quick note: The world out side of CF does not eat well. If you are in the outside world no one has chicken in their purse to offer you or a paleo kit in their car. They have Cheetos and powdered sugar covered mini doughnuts.

I am trying to remember what Sears says "you are just one meal away from the zone". I do have a lot of guilt associated with my behavior over the past week though.

I now have another reason to get in better shape though. It involves alligators, fire and electrocution. Yes, I have signed up for a Tough Mudder.