Category Archives: confession

Weighing In

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One class that I’m taking this semester is Health Program Planning, and so far it isn’t what I expected it to be. It’s funny that my last two posts were about making small changes, and last Friday in class we got to do body composition testing!

Yeah that’s like the last thing anyone ever wants to do, right?

I hadn’t had my body composition or body fat tested since before I got mono, well over six months ago. I purposely avoided making an appointment to get my body comp tested at the gym for one simple fact–I didn’t want to know what it was. That would be called denial, my friends. The denial caught up with me two weeks ago when our professor announced that we would be completing our body composition analysis.

I go to the University of Kansas so you know this machine is one of the good ones…

inbody_v-1 inbody 230 b

Except no one looks that happy when they find out how much fat they have.

You stand on this fancy machine after having cleaned your feet, and you hold onto the arms while it weighs you and displays your weight, fat, lean muscle, and BMI on the little screen. It keeps moving and measuring and displays if you are in the ‘under,’ ‘normal,’ or ‘over’ range. I secretly wanted to yell at it to stop but that would have been embarrassing.  Then it printed out our results and it is our responsibility to find two things that we can improve on and develop plans to giterdun.

The Breakdown

Weight–This was no surprise to me. I weigh myself on a weekly basis and know exactly how much I weigh and I am content with it. Not superomghappy but it’s a ‘happy weight’ that I am able to comfortably maintain.

Body Fat Percentage–higher than what I want and what it was the last time I had it tested. and is something that I need to work on. I was talking with a friend about the possibility that while I lost weight having mono, I may have also lost some muscle mass since I wasn’t able to workout or train like I had been.

Lean Body Mass– One of the things I’m happy about. My lean mass is actually a little over what a ‘normal’ person my age and height should have, but it also went to prove to me that I am as muscular as I think I am and that I do in fact, have a larger body frame.

BMI– Higher than average, but BMI doesn’t take into account muscle mass. Body fat percentage is the number that I am most focused on out of all of these.

This test was able to display where my lean body mass is, how much water weight I have, my dry mass (minerals, etc.), my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR is how many calories one burns per day with basic bodily functions). BMR serves also as a calorie base, so if you want to lose weight you would eat less than your BMR, if you are maintaining you would stay right around that calorie number, and so forth.

The Goals

Since this is a program planning class, we had to target two goals and design our own program to achieve these. My goals over the next 5 weeks are to decrease body fat by 5lbs and decrease overall body fat percentage. I understand how these could be seen as the same goal, and in a sense they are, but they are what I want and need to improve.

The Plan

In order to achieve these two goals, I have changed my approach to my workouts, running and exercising. My goals for 2013 were kind of already setting me up to achieve these two goals for class, but now knowing my numbers serves as a little extra motivation to be consistent and diligent with my working out. Instead of several, 45-60 minute runs per week, my workouts have been looking more like this:

Monday- 30 minutes of cardio (running or stairs) plus 45-60 minutes of lifting
Tuesday- either 3-4 mile run at around a 9:15-9:30 average pace (fast-ish for me), or like this Tuesday, I did 30 hard minutes on the stairs, 30 minutes of hard cycling, followed by a 2 mile run
Wednesday- Rest
Thursday- 5:45am Zumba (if I make it) or 3-4 mile run, plus 30 minutes of lifting
Friday- 15-20 minutes of hard cardio, plus 30 minutes of lifting
Saturday- Long run
Sunday- Rest

This has been a schedule that works for me and is something I am able to maintain with my lifestyle. I have really been able to see a difference in my body composition since I started lifting regularly in January and am happy with the results so far! Weight lifting has become a new passion of mine–there is just something about being able to pump iron and use my muscles that makes me feel really strong and empowered! Last year I got in a fitness run and I am happy to have made these changes to shake things up and make new progress!

I’m also trying to ‘train’ for a half marathon in April. More on that later…

Public Service Announcement

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First, thank you all for the overwhelming response on my last post! Most responses were kept private, but it makes me so happy to know that what I write and put out there for the world to see…is being seen and making an impact!

This is something else that I hope to make an impact with. For my (favorite) class, Theories of Health Behavior and Education, we had to choose a topic at the beginning of the semester that we would be building on over the semester, researching, writing papers, and creating interventions before. For our final project, we had to write a final paper and create a PSA about our topic. Our topic began as binge and overeating disorders, and we narrowed it to emotional binge and overeating among college age women, to give us a more specific area to study and target. My awesome partner took on the paper portion, while I took on the actual video.

The topic is one I wanted to work on because it is something I have personally dealt with in the past and feel very passionately towards, as well as knowing many women who struggle with this very issue. It’s one that’s typically overlooked and not as widely addressed as other eating disorders…so here you go…

From Square One

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Foreword: This is a long post.

I haven’t been writing about any recent personal accounts with running lately because while I have been running (a little), I didn’t want to jinx anything!

The last time I went to the doctor several weeks ago during that gross mono flare up, she told me that I was literally only allowed to run ONE mile at a time. She is a runner and probably worried that I wouldn’t listen (not like I hadn’t listened before…….) but after all of the sickness I had been through, I was sure to heed her direct instructions this time. Start with 1 mile, then 2 after 1 became comfortable again…but really, when is ONE mile comfortable? Never. That’s when.

So I believe it was about 3 weeks ago when I set out and ran ONE mile around a pond in a park on a nice, freezing fall morning. I’m really glad I only did one lap of the lake because I forgot how to dress appropriately for cold running weather. But boy, did I feel on top of the world! One mile, yeah! I was so happy.

The following week, I worked my way up to a 2 and 2.5 mile loop around where I live, and I was thrilled. Because I was running shorter distances, I was running faster than I normally would in the past which felt really nice, but my legs also burned, which I loved.

Last week, I set out to conquer 4 miles on the treadmill,  while at a slower pace than I run outside and wanting to give up at mile 3.5, I accomplished the goal of 4 miles. This past Saturday was our Girls on the Run 5k, and I had promised a girl that I was going to be her running buddy, which was my motivation for running the 4 miles earlier in the week, to make sure I could actually do it. By golly, my little buddy and I rocked that 5k at just over 32 minutes.

Enter Saturday night. 10pm, me sitting in bed with a fever, freezing hands and feet, and my head over a trash can. I caught a yucky stomach flu bug and spent 5 hours Saturday night and Sunday morning throwing up. I weighed myself Sunday morning to find that just from throwing up, I had dropped 10lbs overnight! What an awesome diet plan. Get the flu, BAM! You’re skinny. Sunday was spent in bed, completely sore from the night’s events and trying to gain enough energy to walk up the stairs. Yesterday I woke up feeling SO much better, and so much better that I decided I wanted to run this (Tuesday) morning.

Never mind having thrown up like 15% of my body weight two days ago, I figured that since I had worked up to 4 miles last week that I could do the same, but outside. WHEN WILL I EVER LEARN?!?!?!

Today. Perhaps today was the day that I will learn. It was cool, perfect for a run, I had a great night’s sleep last night and was ready to pump some endorphins. I set out and 6 minutes in I immediately wanted to go home. I couldn’t get a hang of my breathing, my legs felt weak and exhausted, I didn’t think I had it in me. But I wanted to run 4 miles. I kept at it and considered turning off to a 3 mile route I know, but it was cluttered with construction workers and equipment so I continued along the planned 4 miles.

I couldn’t do it. I got lightheaded and couldn’t get over my feeling of weakness. I ran 2 miles and walked the last 2 home, contemplating my life and what the hell I thought I was doing trying to run 4 miles and not turning around when I knew it wasn’t feeling right, especially after having been so sick.

Now picture the lightbulb that appeared above my head during my walk of running shame this morning.

I had to admit to myself that I am really having to start at square one. Not like square one one, back when I first started running 3 years ago…but square one from my ‘old’ running self. Square one for Marathon Kelsey. I’m really going to be spending time evaluating my fitness and running goals, and I’ll post on that later.

I love running. Right now I can’t run 5, 8, 10, 16 miles like I used to. It’s not that I’ve lost my fitness, but my endurance has really taken a hit from sickness. I’ve been reminded of how hard it was to work for that endurance, and I think I’ve gained a true sense of respect for my body and what it is actually capable of.

Running is serving a different purpose in my life than it used to. I would joke that running was my boyfriend because I spent so much time doing it, and it was, but now I have a real boyfriend (who is way more amazing than running). There is so much more I am doing with my life at the moment than running. I have rekindled my desire to volunteer and serve other people, spend time with my family, study for school, and GASP, I actually take a breather and take time to watch one TV show a week. Life has a lot to give me right now, and unfortunately it is not fully in the means of running.

Running is still there. I love right now that I get to use it as some time for myself, a short 20-30 minute break to get a few miles in. Enough time to exercise, rejuvenate, and come back with a clear head without wreaking havoc on my body, scheduling out half of my day to spend running, or having so much time by myself that by the end, I consider myself insane.

The square one thing was hard to realize, but I’m going to work with it.

23 and Other Things

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One thing I failed to mention on the blog last week, that Wednesday was my 23rd birthday. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that 23 is my favorite number.

Because it was Michael Jordan’s basketball jersey number and I think he’s a pretty smart, inspirational guy, as well as one of the most legendary athletes of our time.

So naturally, this means 23 is going to be a good year, right?

Wednesday I was surprised with lots of flowers, cards and gifts from friends which made the day feel special (as my family and I weren’t actually ‘celebrating’ until the following weekend).

I then had my own little party by eating a delicious Gigi’s cupcake given to me by a friend and going on a 5-mile run in the rain. I figured it would be better to eat the cupcake before running as opposed to after, it also turns out that cupcakes are GREAT running fuel, I felt fantastic the entire time! It makes sense though…they have the carbs, sugar, basically everything in a GU but more delicious!

My Girls on the Run girls serenaded me at the beginning of practice, and the elementary kiddos I teach at my church showered me with birthday cards. Needless to say, it was a super sweet day.

This past Saturday was the Kansas City Marathon, which I was slated to run until I was diagnosed with mono. Despite not being able to run, I know how important volunteers are to running events, so I signed up to be a course monitor right around mile marker #20. This was a whole different experience than running, worthy of it’s own individual post (coming up next). It was super fun getting to cheer and encourage runners, especially my friend Lisa who completed her FIRST FULL MARATHON!!!!

Saturday night was my family birthday celebration and my boyfriend joined in on the festivities

My dad grilled kebabs for us which was totally delicious, and my parents got me a red velvet cake which was AMAZING from Costco…seriously. This cake was $10 and amaze-balls.

Jason is even such a great photographer that he even managed captured this amazingly embarrassing photo of my blowing out candles which of course, I must share with you. Because I don’t have secrets and love embarrassing things

After our family celebration, J and I had a Starbucks date and then went to see Pitch Perfect which is hilarious and if you haven’t seen it, you need to. If you’ve already seen it, you should probably see it again. With me.

Sunday after our normal festivities (church, and J and I teaching the elementary kiddos), I knocked some studying out of the way and played card games at J’s parents house with the whole fam.

Then on Monday…I woke up sick. Feeling like complete…

This is from my freshman year in college….HA

Booty. I think this most accurately describes how I felt. It was like I got mono all over again–sweats, a fever, my throat hurt…it was glorious.

I made an appointment to see my doctor pronto and apparently I had (along with my mono still being there) caught a virus that she said typically lasts about 3 days. I hope she’s right, because today is day 3 and I am over this junk.

She also advised me to nix the 3-5 mile ‘easy’ runs which made me sad but I’m going to listen to her–because she’s my doctor and a runner. I’m allowed 1-1.5 miles to start and build from there.

I expected to feel more upset about this, but I have learned that my health has to come first right now. I have been sick/at the doctor/hospital more this year than ever before, and I’m stuck with my health for life. My body is obviously trying to tell me something and even though I thought I was doing a good job at listening, I need to do better.

I am now making it my mission to become the best running cheerleader ever.