I'm not the only one

So, I just got a heart rate monitor.  I didn't want one that had a chest band thingy because, honestly, I wasn't sure it fit.  I read a list of reviews of a promising one, however, and a big guy said it fit him, so I tumbled.

What I thought was this--a gadget might make working out more interesting.  I don't mind working out.  Really.  I love having worked out.  What I hate is getting off the couch to go.  The promise of a toy might help.  It really might.

So I have used it twice.  I like that it talks to the machine I'm on, and I like that it gives me numbers consistent with what the exercise machines themselves have given me over the last few years.  It also confirms that it's easy for me to be complacent.  I'd like to get my heart rate between, say 137 and 158.  But the elliptical is pretty easy for me to do for a long time at 125.  I mean, I'd have to go faster to get my heart going harder, and I don't wanna.  (Four years ago, I did the elliptical for five minutes and had to get off.  I thought it might kill me.)

Yesterday I did 15 on an elliptical to warm up.  Then I got on the rotating staircase thing.  For six minutes.  Then I had to change.  I could barely breathe.  My heart rate was up to 151.  I believed it.  I tried to make a note of what that felt like.

I did another 9 minutes on a different elliptical, and that was it.  My heart rate, once over 140 never dropped below it until I went to stretch and do abs.

Now, here is the question.  My monitor calculates calories spent based on "total body stress" and the weight I entered when I set it up.  For a total of 43 minutes (including stretching), it said I burned 937 calories.  And I don't believe it.  I don't.  I mean, I am a big guy and all, and I was working hard.  But that's a lot of calories. 

I googled the topic and it seems that a lot of people think the monitors give too high a calculation.  I'm going to figure on half the number being true, and use whatever it gives me as a kind of benchmark.  But I don't think 937 is accurate.  Anyone else?

Progress

The Anti-Jared has a good post right now.  His point is that you can't cheat your body.  It knows if you have been treating it well or not.  You can eat badly for a few days and not gain, but if you do it all the time, you will.  At a minimum, you will feel less well.  Have a look:  http://theantijared.com/2011/07/the-house-always-wins.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAnti-jared+%28The+Anti-Jared%29

To that end, I'm down to about where I was pre-hospital weight.  Mostly, I have been watching portion sizes and eating good food.  Real food.  No doughnuts.  If you look at www.refusetoregain.com (at the right side of this page), you will see that the writer emphasizes the importance of the quality of the calories one ingests, not just the number.  Her theory is based on insulin load in response to certain foods.  She does not believe it's a zero sum game.  I 'm not sure I do, either.

When I was in my recent doughnut phase, I don't think I ate an extra 10,500-14,000 calories in a couple of weeks (3-4 pounds).  I really don't.  But I do think that the fried, carbo-goodness of doughnuts wrecked havoc on my body's blood sugar.  (Note:  I am not diabetic, knock wood.)  In less than a month, I was up a solid six pounds.  I started eating better (not really much less, either), drinking more water, too, and I'm back down.  (I guess it's possible that I was just "impacted," if you know what I mean.  It's possible that dehydration was making me retain water.  Either way, it was a decent reminder that eating good food is a reward in itself.

I have been frustrated at the stagnancy of my loss.  But staying the same doesn't suck, given my history.  So I'll keep doing what I'm doing, and I'll get back to the gym.

Speaking of, I haven't been to the gym much in the last seven weeks or so.  One baby came home from the hospital last Wednesday, and I think the other one will come home tomorrow or Tuesday.  It's made for a crazy sleep schedule, and it's hard for me to get to the gym when I can barely see straight.  But I'll get back.  Everything I read says you can't exercise away a bad diet, so I'm going to focus on eating in a healthy way for now and hit the gym when I can.

Can't Help It

I know I haven't written much lately, and if you're waiting to read this blog, I apologize.  There's been a lot going on.

First, in the last month, I have gone to the hospital every day because my wife or kids or all three have been there.  The kids are still there and will be for a few weeks.  Nothing is wrong with them except that they are young.  Once they learn to eat and breathe at the same time, they'll come home.

This is the first time in a year that I've really fallen off the weightloss wagon.  Despite the fact that the hospital is only ten minutes from my house, I have felt serious time pressure, and I've needed to rely on convenience foods.  Specifically doughnut.  There are something like ten doughnut shops between my house and the hospital.  I feel as if the proprietors all know me.  In fact, one gave me an extra doughnut the other day because I've been such a good customer.  That was the bump I needed, I think.  I mean, I could have been going to the Subway next door.  Right?  Right?  Do I hear an amen?

Who knew doughnuts were a trigger food for me?  Sometimes people bring them to the office, and I have been quite good at ignoring them.  Well, not ignoring them.  I look at them, and then I decide I don't want them.  It's food porn. 

I turned 45 yesterday.  I would like to lose another 40-50 pounds this year (he says, breakfasting on birthday cake).  I owe it to myself and to my new babies, who have no visible means of support.  (Don't they come with a dowry?  Oh wait--)  I have put on 3-4 pounds in the last month.  It's the stress.  The eating of feelings.  I think, however, I'm over it, for a while anyway.  Another year would be good.  All told, it's not horrible, and I am smaller than I was a year ago at this time.  I don't even notice the 3-4 pounds except on the scale.  But the trend is not what I want.

I think I'm rambling now.  Here's a nice picture.

9 1/2 Pound Gain

I haven't written anything lately.  Here's why.  My wife has been in the hospital with preeclampsia.  She had the babies yesterday, S, who was 5 lbs 3 oz, and C, who was 4 lbs 2 oz.  Almost 9 1/2 pounds.  Everyone is mostly fine, though the babies will have to be in the hospital for a while.

More later, but that's the story.

Wow.  I'm somebody's dad!  

Positive stuff--No, really

So, this was going to be a letter to my scale, which does not budge.  But it's going to be something else.  Some good news.

I got turned down for life insurance, and it really made me mad.  But such is life.  I haven't been focused on dropping weight for a while now.  I've had a lot going on.  I haven't gone insane or anything, and I have not gained (which is a win in my world).  But I'm working more now.  I'm eating a little cleaner.  I'm moving more (walking to the train, committing to working out more regularly).  I feel pretty good. 

I'm getting looks occasionally from women on the street.  This is kind of cool.  I know what this looks like because--well, I just do.  They aren't really lingering looks.  They are glances.  But they're there.  I like it, even though I am not on the market in any sense. 

Yesterday a friend I haven't seen in a while came over.  "Hello, skinny!" she said.  Who me?  But that was fun.

Today, I had a really nice experience at the clothing store.  I've needed some khakis for a while now.  I'm kind of particular sometimes, and I wanted a particular color (shade, really).  He showed me a stack of folded pants, said of some pairs, "These are too small, and these are too big."  The too big ones?  My size.  I told him.  "Really?  You sure?"

Well not really.  I haven't tried on clothes in a while.  I've been on the cusp of a lower size, too.  And as you probably know, not all clothes marked with the same size are really the same size.  But I tried on a smaller size and they fit.  Amazing.  And I bought a linen suit, too.  I've been wanting a summer suit.

Here's what I think.  I'm shrinking.  I kind of wish I'd been tracking measurements.  I really would like another twenty pounds to go away this summer.  That would put me solidly into the lower size.  (I know size is just a number, but the selection sure gets better as you get smaller.) 

Getting turned down

I once had a bunch of life insurance.  Ten years ago, I had a boatload.  Then I moved away, became self-employed, and got divorced.  I let it go.  There was no reason to have it.  I was never going to get married again.  I sure wasn't going to have kids.  I was already pushing 40.

So here I am, several years later, married and with twins on the way.  Who would have guessed?

I need some life insurance.  Something more than the $50k I have through my job.  Happily, I received in the mail a solicitation for group term life insurance through my alumni association.  I applied.  The basic application asked for medical history, height, weight, that kind of thing.

They sent a guy out to take more history, draw blood, take a urine sample.  Typical.

Then they turned me down.  Why?  Height and weight.  I'm too short for life insurance.  What I don't understand is why I had to go through the process of giving blood (and urine) if they could have turned me down based on the first thing I sent them. 

Maybe the thinking is, "He can't be that fat.  Let's send someone to see."

I don't know.  But I'm annoyed.  And I guess I'd better not die.

Shrinkage

It's not what you think.  This is about therapy.

I am nothing if not well-counseled.  What I have learned is that childhood is very important, that the injuries you suffer then are injuries you carry with you for life.  If you are self-aware enough, have some help, and do the work, you can get beyond them.  They still happened, but they don't have to continue to cause you anxiety or rule your behavior.

I take this on faith, because I'm not there yet.  My inner second-grader guide me more than I think.  I'm trying to be aware of these things.  I've been thinking about that kid lately.  As a kid, I felt pretty bad about who I was.  That hasn't changed.  As a kid, I ate to medicate.  Some people do drugs.  Some drink.  I ate, mostly.  My parents sent me to my first shrink when I was ten or eleven.  His goal was, I think, to make me thin.  I am pretty sure he was a Ph.D.  I'm sure he came highly recommended.  I went one time.  Here's what he did:  he hypnotized me.  I kid you not.

I had to look at a flickering light, then close my eyes and concentrate on whatever flickering I could see through my eyelids while he convinced me that I wanted to be thin enough to wear a new, blue bathing suit.  I think he suggested that I ride my bike for 30 minutes a day.  I remember being antsy.

The guy was not unkind.  But even then I thought it was bullshit.  I thought hypnosis was silly, and I didn't feel as though I was in whatever trance I was supposed to be in.  What I knew was that I was supposed to be serious about the process.  It was for my own good.  My folks were concerned.  I have always been a pleaser, a good do-bee, and I was there, too.

There are two things that strike me about this now, more than thirty years later.  First, I figure my parents thought it was bullshit, too, since I only went one time.  Second--and this is probably of primary importance--I wonder why the shrink didn't explore why I was overeating so much.  It seems so obvious.  I was eating as a kind of medications.  Think about the line in Mean Girls, when Tina Fey's voiceover is itemizing the various lunch groups in the school cafeteria.  One table is full of (fat) girls "who eat their feelings."  It's funny because it's true.  It's also heartbreaking.

My reading about depression tells me that the concept that kids can be depressed is a recent development.  The idea was that depression is rooted in childhood injury and that children cannot develop depression while still children.  Something like that.  That belief no longer carries the day.  I assume that's why the guy didn't ask about my eating.  I am appalled, though at what passed for therapy.  Mostly I ended up feeling like a disappointment.  I hope my parents didn't pay too much.