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Devil in the Details
Dec. 5th, 2018 07:57 amThis post is mostly just running and diet talk - diet as in "the things I eat every day," not diet as in "a restricted eating plan geared towards weight loss." Feel free to scroll past.
I haven't even been able to bring myself to log into Tumblr and I already know my running blog there is probably going to be abandoned. Which is a shame because it was a good place to share the minute, nerdy details of running, weight, body fat, nutrition, yanno. For example this morning I've been reading up on how bioimpedance body fat scales work because I couldn't figure out why the hell I'd gained five percentage points in three days. Typically I only do body fat measurements once a month and I go with a measuring tape, then plug the numbers into an online calculator that uses the US Army's computational method. (I am fit for duty! Except for being too old, too crotchety, and too defiant towards authority figures. But in strictly physical terms, I could be a soldier.)
What led to this is that Fox and I were discussing it on the plane ride home, and as the beginning of the month rolled around he set up "player two" on his bathroom scale. This is a basic Health-O-Meter job that uses bioimpedance to measure body fat. It's wrong, but it gives you an idea of whether your percentage is going up and down.
Except it doesn't.
My percentages have shot up because I didn't know NOT to do it first thing in the morning, and being dehydrated can skew your numbers WAY upward. So I'm not exactly packing on fat like a bear preparing to hibernate. I just need to determine a better time to get that particular measurement - not, obviously, very first thing in the morning.
Now my body fat has gone up since I last did it, and I expected that and I am not surprised. I was just a little surprised at how much it had supposedly increased. I'm a firm believer in the consumption of carbs (I'm a runner, I'll eat almost anything that isn't nailed down) so I'm not even going to go the low-carb route because I LIKE being able to finish my runs without feeling like death. Yesterday I had a terrific training run, and it was fueled by a fairly carb-heavy dinner the night before and breakfast that morning. I also don't do fasted cardio as much anymore as I'm no longer interested in weight loss, and giving my attention to performance. Weight loss and performance are mutually exclusive.
The main tweak I'm going to be using is cutting down on the sweets. Christmas is probably not the best time for this but my intake of sugary treat foods has gone way up since Tokyo, when I was putting in close to 20 miles of walking per day. When I got home I continued enjoying ice cream, chocolates, cake, etc. while running a good bit, but not putting in nearly the daily mileage I had been.
Obviously cutting out desserts entirely is a dumb idea bound for failure. I'll just be planning my treats more carefully when I have them and not just indiscriminately shoving the entire contents of a bakery case down my gullet.
But I am going to make sticky orange cinnamon rolls for Christmas because that's what I do.
Since it's cold again - 39 when I got up, which is damn cold for Florida - I put a pot of overnight oats on the stove last night. Oatmeal is amazing to run on, it puts a LOT of gas in the tank because it's a huge carb bomb. I've also really gotten on the savory oatmeal bandwagon so I'm planning to dress mine up with jalapeno sauce, avocados, and nooch. I also had a bit of a brain fart - why couldn't you stir hummus into oatmeal? I might try that. Publix carries a brownie batter hummus that's amazing. I know it sounds bizarre but I once made a sandwich of spicy roasted plantains with chocolate hummus and it was crack-tacular.
I haven't even been able to bring myself to log into Tumblr and I already know my running blog there is probably going to be abandoned. Which is a shame because it was a good place to share the minute, nerdy details of running, weight, body fat, nutrition, yanno. For example this morning I've been reading up on how bioimpedance body fat scales work because I couldn't figure out why the hell I'd gained five percentage points in three days. Typically I only do body fat measurements once a month and I go with a measuring tape, then plug the numbers into an online calculator that uses the US Army's computational method. (I am fit for duty! Except for being too old, too crotchety, and too defiant towards authority figures. But in strictly physical terms, I could be a soldier.)
What led to this is that Fox and I were discussing it on the plane ride home, and as the beginning of the month rolled around he set up "player two" on his bathroom scale. This is a basic Health-O-Meter job that uses bioimpedance to measure body fat. It's wrong, but it gives you an idea of whether your percentage is going up and down.
Except it doesn't.
My percentages have shot up because I didn't know NOT to do it first thing in the morning, and being dehydrated can skew your numbers WAY upward. So I'm not exactly packing on fat like a bear preparing to hibernate. I just need to determine a better time to get that particular measurement - not, obviously, very first thing in the morning.
Now my body fat has gone up since I last did it, and I expected that and I am not surprised. I was just a little surprised at how much it had supposedly increased. I'm a firm believer in the consumption of carbs (I'm a runner, I'll eat almost anything that isn't nailed down) so I'm not even going to go the low-carb route because I LIKE being able to finish my runs without feeling like death. Yesterday I had a terrific training run, and it was fueled by a fairly carb-heavy dinner the night before and breakfast that morning. I also don't do fasted cardio as much anymore as I'm no longer interested in weight loss, and giving my attention to performance. Weight loss and performance are mutually exclusive.
The main tweak I'm going to be using is cutting down on the sweets. Christmas is probably not the best time for this but my intake of sugary treat foods has gone way up since Tokyo, when I was putting in close to 20 miles of walking per day. When I got home I continued enjoying ice cream, chocolates, cake, etc. while running a good bit, but not putting in nearly the daily mileage I had been.
Obviously cutting out desserts entirely is a dumb idea bound for failure. I'll just be planning my treats more carefully when I have them and not just indiscriminately shoving the entire contents of a bakery case down my gullet.
But I am going to make sticky orange cinnamon rolls for Christmas because that's what I do.
Since it's cold again - 39 when I got up, which is damn cold for Florida - I put a pot of overnight oats on the stove last night. Oatmeal is amazing to run on, it puts a LOT of gas in the tank because it's a huge carb bomb. I've also really gotten on the savory oatmeal bandwagon so I'm planning to dress mine up with jalapeno sauce, avocados, and nooch. I also had a bit of a brain fart - why couldn't you stir hummus into oatmeal? I might try that. Publix carries a brownie batter hummus that's amazing. I know it sounds bizarre but I once made a sandwich of spicy roasted plantains with chocolate hummus and it was crack-tacular.
