According to RealAge I'm 40

Friday, November 25, 2011

I got this tradition from Don. www.sparkpeople.com/mypage.as
p?id=DDOORN

Every year he goes to RealAge.com to see what his "biological" age is.

I did it for this year:

2011 40.5

Here are some past years:

2009 38.6
2008 46.1
www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_jo
urnal_individual.asp?blog_id=2582089

My actual chronological age? 46 as of Tuesday.

While it's sad to see my "virtual" age increase now that I'm in maintenance mode, it's still nice to know that I'm 6 years "younger" than my physical self.

I think I like the answer my scale gives, better. "26." LOL

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Woo Hoo, back in my Happy Range! I've earned my NEW BOAT!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

My current maintenance "goal" weight is 155, with +/- 3% range around it.
(150.4 - 159.7) It's here that my body fat usually settles down to around 20% or below.

And I'm BAAAACK!

It'll take my moving average tracker a few days to catch up which is why my ticker doesn't show it, but YAY. I'm going to have my happy strength to weight ratio back. Where I can really DO things.

It's funny how much the difference in athletic performance can be, between me at 165 and me at 160 and me at 155. In my goal range my body can do almost anything I ask it to. I have markedly better strength, agility, and flexibility and I can propel myself much more effectively (on a bike, in a kayak, on XC skis, etc.)

I got there this summer and vowed I'd get a new boat when it happened.
www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_jo
urnal_individual.asp?blog_id=4274110
But I'd torn my rotator cuff and couldn't kayak so I deferred the reward.

And then I gained 20 pounds in two months.


And then I worked hard to get it back off. Because that's what you do, when you never, Ever, EVER give up.

And then they had the boat I wanted (including the COLOR I wanted) on sale last month and I was close enough so I went ahead and bought it, anticipating I'd get here.

And yeah, I've already been using it.
www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_jo
urnal_individual.asp?blog_id=4589505

But now that baby is really MINE. ALL MINE.

And to be able to keep fitting in it and using it I'll HAVE to stay here!


I ALSO got to wear one of my new Buffs as a reward and this really WAS the first time I got to use it. Here I am wearing it, this morning, after doing the exercise class sampler at the local Y


For more information about Buffs, see here:
www.planetbuff.com
www.buffusa.com
www.buffwear.com
I like them as rewards because they're relatively inexpensive, fun to wear while working out to catch the sweat, and they come in all kinds of colors and patterns.

I buy them in batches and then use them as rewards for staying within my happy range.

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Look, Ma, no paddle!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Remember when I posted my first kayak rolling videos two years ago? With a paddle?

September 2009
www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_jo
urnal_individual.asp?blog_id=2441242
A roll on one side

October 2009
www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_jo
urnal_individual.asp?blog_id=2508362
Rolling on both sides

Well, now I can do it in one of my own boats with NO PADDLE! And here's proof!

Did I mention I spent almost all of the 2011 season out of a boat, recovering from rotator cuff surgery? That I wasn't even cleared to boat in rivers again until the beginning of October?

That arm in the water, doing most of the bracing at the end of the roll? THAT is the one that was chopped in May.

Good job, Drs. Maloney (surgeon) and Huson (PT).

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It's becoming about the athletics, not the weight loss.

Monday, November 14, 2011

I found myself writing a long response to one of MAGGIEROSEBOWL's blog posts, in which she wondered if not divulging the fact and magnitude of her weight loss meant she wasn't proud of it.
www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_jo
urnal_individual.asp?blog_id=4581118

Here is part of my comment:

In a lot of ways I am prouder of my recent athletic achievements than I am of having lost the weight.

I can whitewater kayak better than almost any woman I know of at my age (mid-40s, formerly obese or not), and better than many men my age, and better than many folks I know who are younger, of either gender.

Lots of people manage to eat less and move a little more and drop a lot of weight. I know well over 100 people just here on SP who have lost 100+ lbs. Not a lot of them go from super obese into extreme sports and thrive.

I work hard at improving my skills and my strength to weight ratio, and it produces results. In the end I'm most proud of that. The weight loss for me is slowly just becoming history.

-------

This is somewhat different from how I viewed my post-loss world when I got to goal in January 2010. At that point I'd bought into the idea spread here and other places that once I got to goal it was time to identify new goals and rush off to accomplish them.

Not so fast, buddy.

When I hit goal I still didn't know how much I needed to eat to maintain that weight, at my current activity level. And I compounded that problem by starting on a rigorous triathlon training program. (That was my exciting new goal.) All of a sudden I was burning way more calories than I had before and I didn't even know what my baseline food should be, let alone the food on the new exercise program.

It was a disaster, with cravings going through the roof, followed by binges, weight cycling crazily out of control, and a sense of confusion. Followed by a slow gain of roughly 30 lbs over the next 9-12 months.

Back then I was still in the "I can't believe I have this new body now" mode. It was like being on vacation from the fat. Like any honeymoon phase everything seemed bright and new and exciting, and a little scary.

Now, having carefully gotten most of those 30 back off again, I've settled down into a focus on my kayaking. I care more about kayaking than anything else. Specifically white water kayaking.

To figure out what is going on I still track everything. I follow it in charts.
docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=
0Ah4KrA4GkhKgdEF6dlJkbnNlVEFCZlhxRElCW
DZNUlE

And over time I've been able to see the correlation between my weight, strength, and performance. And now I have a much better handle on how much I need to eat and what kinds of foods.

I'm invested in attaining the highest strength to weight ratio I can get. I want to see how far I can take this.

And it’s paying off. Saturday I went for a river surfing session in Watertown www.americanwhitewater.org/content/R
iver/detail/id/1255/#rapid5224 and managed “super clean” 180 spins (that’s turning all the way around without using a paddle, just the edge of the boat with balance and a judicious tilt of the hips). I nearly managed a “super clean” 360, (I got about 340 degrees around before flipping and flushing off the feature).

Here's what a super clean 360 spin looks like.
www.dailymotion.com/video/x2467_supe
r-clean-spin_extreme

These are things I have not been able to do before. And I definitely couldn’t do them the last time I was at that playhole, over a year ago. I’ve improved dramatically despite losing most of the 2011 season to a shoulder injury.

Sunday I went to a pool session and among other things tried (yet again) to roll my playboat without a paddle (using just my hands). www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_jo
urnal_individual.asp?blog_id=4589505
AND I DID IT. FINALLY. I’ve managed it a few times in borrowed boats, but never before in one of my own.

These things aren’t easy to do. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I can do them now, rather than earlier. Ever since being discharged from PT I’ve been working hard at increasing my strength by eating well (~150g protein per day) and working out a lot:

M - Tae Kardio at lunchtime, Body Pump Class in the evening
Tu - XC ski at lunchtime (if there is snow), Spinning in the evening
W - Tae Kardio at lunchtime, Body Pump Class in the evening
Th - Tae Kardio at lunchtime, Spinning in the evening
F- Rest, stretching, sometimes a deep tissue massage
Sa - Playing outside (kayaking, XC skiing, snowboarding, road cycling, etc.)
Su - Playing outside and 4hr kayak rolling / skills session

I am stronger and lighter. I have the physical strength to do these things and am not encumbered with as much fat. Small differences in this sort of thing can translate to big differences in athletic performance, when it comes to strength, agility, and flexibility.

I’m committed to getting the last 10-15 lbs off and getting my body fat below 20% again. Because that is what it is going to take, to do some of those aerial moves I’d like to try.
www.freestylekayakmoves.com/moves.ph
p

And why not?

It’s no longer about the fact that I lost half my body weight. That happens to be my history. It’s about what I can now DO with this body, now.

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Rules for Humans #13 & #14 You will forget all of this. You can remember any time you wish.

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Rule 13: You will forget all of this.

Rule 14: You can remember any time you wish.

And yes you can. Because they are online here rules4humans.com or you can buy the book here:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/076
7902386?tag=manifolds-20

--------------------
For the past 2 weeks I have commented on the Rules for Being Human. I like their sensible approach and now that I'm transitioning back into kayaking and training for kayaking it seems like a good time to revisit them.

To see all of the blog posts I wrote in this series, go here:
docs.google.com/document/d/1Ci-bdg7_
3CEnBXkc9TxHkgRTsJJt-jL_NfhJDL_nebE/ed
it?usp=sharing

You can see all of the rules by themselves, here: rules4humans.com

Here's a video explaining where those Rules came from: vimeo.com/15981754

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