I'm baaaaaaack...

Hey Divas :)

Just wanted to let you know that I'm back in the proverbial saddle. I'm out of my winter funk and ready to spring into action (woo hoo aren't I clever???).

I've decided to go back to Weight Watchers (didn't want to, but work is paying for it and Momola is going with me... it worked last time!!!) and hopefully this time I can maintain my focus and maybe, just maybe, finally see the underside of 200 pounds! :)

Miss you all :)

<3, Jenn :)

Design of a Decade...

Hey Divas...

Just wanted to let you know Lynn and I have started a blog to document the road to our 10th anniversary of this "getting healthy thing". Click ME!

Hope all is well,
C

For those watching calories...

I subscribe to the RSS feed for the Nutrition Data blog. Today's post is striking to me. It's really a reiteration of an article from Marion Nestle.  The first thing that strikes hard:

Here’s the deal on food composition tables: you have to consider these numbers as ballpark figures, not as something engraved in stone.

That's not really too shocking. Food science has never been an exact science. I understand that intellectually. I think I fail to grasp the concept emotionally though.  That's when I saw this:

A 50-gram hard-cooked egg is 78 calories? Plus or minus 10 maybe.

Sure, it's 10 calories; but if it's 10 here and 5 there and 10 over there, that's 25 calories extra that I am eating and may not know it. The other thing that whacks me hard in the gut:

...food companies know quite well what is in their products but they won’t give the USDA any information about nutrient composition beyond what is on the food label; they consider that information “proprietary” and don’t have to.

It seems so useless when reading this article. Why bother when the data we do have is circumspect (despite the very best efforts); and companies want to keep it that way?  Dr. Nestle says:

I use the USDA figures as ballpark estimates and don’t pay any attention to small differences.

I wonder what "small differences" mean to her.  Maybe I'm just tired of fighting a battle that has more obstacles than I have ideas.  Does this mean "counting calories" is really about consistency?  If it is, what does that really mean for the concept of move more + eat less = weight loss?  How can you trust that you are eating less when your morning hard boiled egg could be 68 to 88 calories?  This makes my brain hurt.

Triathlon Conversion Calculators

Triathlon Conversion Calculators

Winter Training: Indoor Brick Workouts

Hey Divas!

The USAT newsletter had a good article on indoor brick workouts. I'm going to start playing around with them this week. Hope all is well!

Click Me!

Heels and Hills????

Courtney found this one... click the logo for the details.

Du the Bear aka Du the Muddy-Buddy :)

It's no secret I suck at running... I mean I try not to suck, and I have improved, and therefore suck less, but I still suck.

I was happy when I woke up, expecting to have great weather for racing. We lined up and it had been misting already. The Guys started, "and they're off." The Women started and the skies opened and the rain came. LOL What are you gonna do?

But even after the rain, running 5 miles Saturday morning, a gait analysis, Maggie at Kola working on my hip AND being on my feet for 4 hours volunteering at the 10 Miler packet pickup I had 2 of my best race runs, ever!

Maybe there's something to that being on your feet all day!

The bike was okay. I mean it was raining, wet and yucky and riding in rain does nothing for morale. I should have played the lottery though, because I was lucky enough to get stopped by the same cop, at the same light, on each loop (and it wasn't because I was riding at light-speed).

The mud sucked. My one legged yoga moves came in handy, balancing while changing shoes. Lastly, I must be getting faster/better, because there was hot food left when I crossed the line.

I had a little discrepancy between what my Garmin reported and what the race results reported. In the end, it appears that the 5 minute offset for the Athena class was not applied. I would have never been able to prove it, or point it out to them, if my friend's husband hadn't been taking pictures!