Defying the Laws of Physics

My celebrity crush, Neil deGrasse Tyson, was on The Nightly Show Wednesday night. He was refuting a rapper's assertion that the Earth is flat. It was epic. I would be totally fine with NdGT showing up at my house to talk science to me with his biceps and his swag. I could give a shit that he's 57 years old. Dude has game. 

Mic. Drop.

Maybe he'd be able to explain my results from the last two weeks, because I am in (happy, ecstatic) disbelief.

Today was my first follow up with Kirk the Nutrition Guy. The pre-appointment stuff is the same, as we'll do a BIA (bioimpedence analysis) at every visit. No exercise for 12 hours prior. Fasting for 4 hours. No caffeine on day of appointment. No alcohol for 24 hours prior.

Basically I showed up hungry and uncaffeinated. I'm not so pretty in that state. I was wearing leggings as pants, however.

SIZE 8, BITCHES.

I did stop on the way for a large dark roast. I couldn't drink it until after the BIA, but that just meant it was the perfect drinking temp. Nutrition Guy laughed at me. By the time we were all finished with the metrics I was thinking lustful thoughts about this coffee.

My precioussssss.

So how did I do? Well, my weight was essentially the same (up 0.4lbs), and my measurements were basically the same. Even after spending 2 weeks eating damn near twice what I normally do, no change in weight. My BMI was slightly higher as a result of the slightly higher weight. These two things should now prove to you that BMI and weight are stupid numbers that don't tell you anything like the whole story.

Here's the exciting bit. My total body water was up, a good thing as it means my hydration status is better. The balance from extracellular to intracellular is shifting, and that's good. Extracellular water is what makes you feel puffy, intracellular is what makes your cells work at peak efficiency. Nutrition Guy says as this process completes and my body starts to operate at peak hydration, my measurements will change.  More exciting? My body fat percentage dropped by 2%. TWO PERCENT in TWO WEEKS. Partially because I am a higher percentage water and partially because I also GAINED 1.3 POUNDS OF MUSCLE. In TWO WEEKS!  Holy. Shit. This is proof positive that I was previously underfed. My poor little muscles just glommed on to all these new calories and went fucking bonkers on them. So in spite of the scale changing NOT AT ALL, my body composition changed dramatically...in just two fucking weeks of solid, consistent nutrition. 

The diet industry lies. It is absolutely not all about slashing calories. Nutrition Guy asked how I felt about my weight, and I reiterated that I don't give a fuck about the number on the scale. I was so happy with my numbers today. I told him about the food baby issue and feeling like I was force feeding myself, and that I felt like it was resolving slowly. I'm given to understand that this response is normal. I stuck to my servings and my food list (sounds funny to say that, it's the same shit I always ate except now I don't eat bananas) 95% of the time and the results were so phenomenal that my motivation is extremely high to continue. I also really want to lift all the things. Because in conjunction with all this food, that shit is working. 

We spent some time discussing the timing of meals in relationship to workouts, and it turns out that I've been doing the preparatory eating like a boss but sort of neglecting the recovery eating. That will be my focus during this next time frame.

My next appointment is in 2 weeks. All my workouts are planned, and I'm ready to kick ass and take names. The scale and the BMI chart can go fuck themselves. I am on fire. 

By the time I got home I was ravenous. So I made some brunch. 

Eggs with veg, toast with sunbutter, and berries.

I ate it all and it wasn't hard. Hooray for progress. I did a little reading and then headed out for hot yoga, which was bloody perfect on this cold day. My legs are still fucked from 200 wallballs a few days ago, and I realized that when I miss a few yoga days my balance goes all to shit. Stupid vomiting sickness making me miss 3 days in the studio. I've got all my classes scheduled through February, though. On task and moving forward.

After yoga I went over to Dick's to look for some gloves. I always manage to tear my damn hands open at the box. Either doing pull-ups or snatching. And when I snatch I tear the webbing of my thumb and it hurts like a bitch. So I'm going to give these a try for high rep workouts. Wish me luck.

Please. Save my hands.

Once I made it home I had a snack. Bad thing about not starting to eat until 11am is the rest of the day gets sort of compressed. So much to eat! So little time! Then I did some weighted hip thrusts at 125# and some shoulder work to failure. It was...ouchy.

I didn't eat all this hummus, just about 1/4c of it.

I retrieved the spawn from school and got everyone home in record time. My plan was to take them out for supper. Mostly because I didn't feel like doing any more goddamn dishes. I ran the dishwasher 3 times yesterday, packed full. I already did one cycle today and the thought of unloading and reloading it again made me homicidal, so I decided to take the easy way out.

Going out means bathing and dressing in people clothes. Bummer. My stupid hair has officially reached "fuck it" length.  This is my "fuck it" clip.

It's small. I have thin hair.

This is my "fuck it" hair. It's pretty much how I looked 90% of my college career. 

Photographed in front of my "fuck it" bed and my "fuck it" nightstand.

So I loaded up the kids and took them to Mackinaw's. Which was packed to the rafters at quarter to fucking 5. We waited for 20 minutes for a table, and right as we ordered I realized that Golrusk, where the dogger was at Fun Camp, closes at 6pm on Fridays. Fuuuuuuuuccccckkkk. We got very lucky with our server, who was totally cool when I panicked in her face about being on a timetable. Food came out super fast, kids ate on a mission, she rang us up immediately, and we were out the door at 5:40. I tipped her handsomely as I remember waiting tables and if you go above and beyond, I will make sure you know I appreciate it.  We made it to Golrusk with about 8 minutes to spare. Whew.

The boys had a field trip today. They told me about it in animated fashion while we waited for dinner.

It was a puppet show. They demo-ed it for me.

Oh, here's what I had for dinner. Bison burger, sweet potato fries (I ate half of them), and veg. Always veg. Veg and veg and more veg.

Consumed in record time.

After my evening snack I will have gotten all my boxes today except one legume. Minor.  

Ch-ch-ch-chia!

I'm really excited to see what the next 2 weeks brings. The fact that I have these little check-ups is very motivating. Also motivating is the repeat lab work at the end of all this. I love that shit. I've always thought of myself as an experiment of one, and I so enjoy seeing the things I do daily reflected in hard data. 

Tomorrow I'll be hitting up the community WOD and probably getting a few miles on the treader. Fantastic husband is still conferencing, so I won't have the opportunity to get outside. February is more base building with a few pace workouts thrown in on my weekend long runs. I'll be shifting into the 6-9 mile zone for my daily runs, with another time trial in a couple of weeks. Weirdly, my during-the-week runs will be at an 11min/mile pace. I've spent such a long time shifting out of that zone, it feels counterintuitive to slow down. But it also felt counterintuitive to eat everything that's not nailed down, and that turned out pretty fucking great. 

Trust the process. It's my fucking mantra.