Saturday, January 12, 2008

I can't eat another bite!

I met with Mark Friday to be weighed, pinched and measured. I suspected I may have lost a bit of weight but was fearful it was the wrong kind. Since I am oh to familiar with burning muscle as fuel and all the feelings associated with that process while training I wasn't jumping up and down with excitement when I stepped on the scale. An interesting change in perspective is taking place when I think about how much I weigh and whether I should eat more or less. It is somewhat of a complete 180 degree shift from my past thoughts. Unfortunately old habits and pathways in the brain are extremely tough to retrain and I can almost hear myself fighting the new habits. Strange but mostly interesting for me to watch myself behave. :). Stepping on the scale showed a bit over 1 pound of loss. In the past I would have been pretty excited to see any movement down but now I am not sure it's a good down....is it fat or muscle. We leave the scale and move on to pinching and measuring and again I see the numbers going down. My entire upper body lost fat including my neck! The lower half lost a tiny bit but not enough for me to even remember. Then the measuring...........do the measurements coincide with the fat loss or are they too big???? He sat down and plunked in calculations as I stared intently. First the fat percentage......down .56%......I think nice job but I knew .56% does not account for 1+ pounds on my frame. Before he even finished doing all the calculations on the spreadsheet my mathematical mind knew the numeric answer and I had to restrain myself from taking over that computer! The mind works really fast because before he even looked over I had run through about 3 scenarios in my head......going over what I would/could say to convince him I didn't need to eat anymore food. Fortunately for me my compulsive controlling side can be out ruled by logic. The logic I am referring to is....."I have paid this man to help me not enable me so that means you will do what he says and keep your mouth shut"! The verdict was a little over .5 pounds of muscle has been chewed up, utilized to run my body and frankly cannibalized!

We talk and converse and I stop myself from making excuses, coming up with ideas and instead just listened. The menu will be reworked and the 1965 calorie day GONE! The 2645 calorie plan will now be my base and the higher days will be over 3000! He manipulated the foods so I can get them in by adding some liquid calories and some insulin boosters to increase my appetitie. On Monday after my usual back to back long days my calories will be a bit higher and he upped the protein intake by 2% on that day. He said the 2% doesn't seem like much but should aid in muscle repair.

Today is my first day on the new 3000+ plan and at 5p.m. I only have 1 more meal to eat! I think I can do it, yeah! I was somewhat cranky about my perception of my inability to lose more fat faster. He was shocked at my displeasure with 14.6% but he realizes he is dealing with a type A with high expectations. We talked about the fat% vs. pounds of fat and he gave me a good education there. Since I only have 15.7 pounds of fat on my body it will take time but he assured me it will happen. I am really happy about the changes so far but I had no idea how stubborn my body was going to be about muscle wasting. Since I was feeling sluggish and tired this last week I knew there was a good chance I was underfed for the workload the prior 2 weeks. That alone should be motivation for eating more! I can't afford to have these next 2 big runs (tomorrow 32 miles and next Sat. 40 miles all at 8:25-8:30 pace) be icky. Less than 15 hours before I will see if I can pull it off.

2 comments:

  1. Omelettes, shakes w/FRUIT, and 3000 calories...must be rough! You are doing an amazing job. Keep it up dff!

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  2. It is very interesting to me to read of your eating program. It is amazing how differently bodies work. Enjoy those 3000 calories!! You are fueling your workouts and trying to build muscle and lose fat. I love it!

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