The Science of Eating

I ran intervals on Monday morning. I was pretty tired, and I really debated just skipping them, but somehow I managed to drag myself out of bed at 5:45am.

It was a 5 x 800 day, and my goal pace for each half-mile interval was 8:08-8:34.  When I got done with my one-mile warm-up, I started my first interval. Because it was dark, it was more difficult to gauge my pace.  I have to manually activate the light on my Garmin each time I want to see it, and it’s not easy to do when you’re trying to run an 8 minute mile!  I waited until I was almost half-way through to check my pace, and I was stunned to see it had me in the 10s! I knew my body was tired, but not that tired! I figured my Garmin was messed up somehow, and I was so frustrated, I honestly thought about quitting right then.  But, because I hate being a quitter, I plugged on, just trying to run a little faster.

It was when I was done with that split and doing my walk break that I realized what was going on—I had changed the main display to give me overall average pace instead of lap pace, so that 10-something was my average, including the one-mile warm up, ha ha!  I reset it and then continued on, but I did decide to walk all the rest breaks this time, instead of jogging at least part, because I really was tired.  When I got done, I chuckled at my first split time.

 

 

Look what I can do when I’m motivated! 😉 I actually felt pretty good about my splits, considering how my body was feeling that morning.

Later that morning, I weighed myself. I was really hoping for a loss, since I had run 11 miles on Saturday, but had let nearly 1/3 of my week’s total activity points go unused.  That was a big deal for me! I usually eat them all, or very close to it. However, my hopes were dashed when I stepped on the scale.

 

 

That’s almost a half-pound gain from last week.  To say I was unhappy was an understatement. 🙁  But this time, instead of just moping, I decided to do something about it.  I checked the website of my chiropractor, who is very health-conscious and has quite a few other health-minded professionals in his office, and sure enough, he has a registered dietician sharing space with him.  I love my chiropractor, and I figured anyone he would rent space to is someone I can trust.

Based on her website, the RD seems to target her practice to those with a lot of weight to lose, and specifically diabetics trying to manage their weight to reduce or eliminate the need for medication.  I figured it couldn’t hurt to talk to her, though, so I emailed her, gave her a little of my background, and asked if we could meet.  The next day, she sent me a ton of information to get me started, and then we set up a meeting for Wednesday night.  She was very accommodating! She even offered to only charge me half the normal fee ($60) since we’d only be meeting for about half the usual amount of time for an initial meeting.

When I arrived, I discovered that she had all kinds of “props” in her office—lots of empty boxes of food items, and even a ton of plastic food right on her desk! (The first thing that caught my eye when I sat down was the plastic bowl of vanilla ice cream—go figure.) I discovered she uses it to give her clients true visual aids for serving sizes.  She even had a fake “pound of fat” and “pound of muscle”! That was kind of gross, lol. But effective!

As I sat down, she pulled out a whole bunch of paperwork…

 

 

That’s a lot of stuff!  Lisa was her name, and she was extremely friendly and outgoing.  When I sat down, she got right down to business, going over each document and explaining to me the “whys and hows” of food and how a body processes and uses it.  I’ll be honest…there was a lot of science and math involved in our hour-long discussion, and for this liberal arts girl, it was a bit overwhelming.  Okay, maybe more than a bit. 😉 I learned about the Basic Metabolic Rate, how different parts of your body recycle and repair themselves over time, and the way our body processes different types of food.  Dude—my brain hurt! 😛

She talked a lot about calories, and I had to stop her and tell her I wasn’t well-versed in calorie-counting because I’m on Weight Watchers.  Turns out, she was very knowledgeable about the program, and she was able to help me understand how Weight Watchers equates to calories, and how I could then use those calculations to help me make sure I was getting not just enough food, but enough of the right food each day.  She is not a big fan of Weight Watcher’s “free fruit” policy, and she cautioned me against going overboard.

By the time I was done, we’d had a couple of what I would term “breakthrough” conversations that really helped me start to understand things better. The first was about protein.  She was very insistent that I eat more of it.  I brought along a few weeks’ worth of my trackers, and she agreed that I was getting “enough,” but that I should eat more.  She told me it was ok to go over my “calories/points” if it was with more protein.  She said I need 10 servings of protein a day. Wow, that’s a lot of protein! But she pointed out that protein can be found in many places, and we agreed upon a minimum number of protein grams for me for now (68g).

The other breakthrough conversation revolved around exercise.  She was thrilled that I have been doing weight training (she’s a big proponent of strength training for women—she even wrote her master’s thesis on it!).  But then we got to the topic of running.  She was very supportive of it, don’t get me wrong, but when we got to the conversation of calories burned per run, I was in for quite a surprise: when I told her I was running 20-25 miles a week, and I even had a 12-mile run scheduled this week, she replied, “That’s great! You can reclaim about 1/3 to no more than ½ of that activity.”

I was totally clueless at what she was saying, so I asked her to clarify.  She did, and then I asked her to clarify again.  Finally, on the third try, I began to see what she was saying.

“You mean to tell me,” I asked, “if I run 12 miles, I’m only allowed to eat 1/3 to ½ of the points I earn for it?!”

“You got it,” she replied.

I was totally dumbfounded.  It was actually one of those rare moments when I was speechless.  She was telling me that a twelve-mile run was really only like running four or maybe six miles.  What?!

“But…but…I run because I like to eat! You’re telling me I can’t eat all those points I worked so hard for!?”

“Not if you want to lose weight.”

:/

Talk about an eye-opener.  I mean, I’ve slowly come to the realization that I should probably not be eating all my activity points these days, but the concept that I should only use less than half? That just seems harsh. 🙁

She did more math at that point, showing me approximately how many calories I burn per mile (based on my age and weight) and her calculations seemed accurate. (To a girl who isn’t very good at math, ha.)  When we were done with our hour-long session, we came up with the following game plan:

1. I will spend the next couple of weeks counting both Weight Watcher’s points and calories (using Sparkpeople).
2. I will also keep track of my protein intake for the next few weeks, with the intent to add in more protein-rich foods.
3. I will alter my strength training program to decrease total sets of exercises, but add in a few more exercises to get more done in less time.
4. I will swap no more than half my activity points/calories for food, but try to keep it closer to one-third. (Gulp!)

I felt better when it was over, because at least now I have a game plan, something different than what I’ve been doing for the last 6 months.  What she said made sense to me (mostly!), and I’m hopeful that with these changes, I’ll see some real results on the scale and in my body.  We agreed that I should shoot for 115 instead of my previous goal weight of 113, based on the muscle I’ve gained in strength training.  At this point, I’d take that!  Mostly, I just want to feel better, but I can’t lie…the scale is still important to me, even though I know it shouldn’t be, and I want to see it go down.  I’m not excited about only getting to eat 4-6 miles worth of points after my 12-mile run tomorrow :-P, but I suppose I could just drink less wine. 😉

So, when all was said and done, I spent $60 and an hour of my day to have someone tell me that if I want to lose weight, I needed to eat less. The irony of that is not lost on me. 😉

Have a great day—thanks for reading!