I'm agonizingly frustrated. I went back and examined my weigh-in records (we keep an Excel spreadsheet where we record our nightly weigh-ins, body fat percentage and hydration levels according to our high-tech scale), and I have not lost any weight in FIFTEEN WEEKS. Since the second week in March. This f$%#^&@ sucks. All of my weigh-ins from that week on have been in the 183-184 range. Oh sure, I've had a few good weigh-ins, where I've gotten down to 181, but the averages are staying the same, and my end of the week measurements usually have brought me back up to 183. I'm f$^%&#@ sick of 183.

I know there are a few events that occurred around that time that have some relation to this lack of weight loss. First and foremost is the seasonal change. No, not from winter to spring or anything like that. It's the change from swim season to lacrosse season. I coach both sports, and swimming ends at the end of February, which is when lacrosse picks up. As much as I love to coach the girls, I hate the schedule of swim season. The school I teach at does not have its own pool, so we rent lane space from the university. The club swim team that practices there has an arrangement with our swim league (which, to put it bluntly, is sort of a half-assed organization that only exists because of the determination of a few coaches in the area) to allow many of the teams to practice with their club using some of their coaches. It benefits many of the high school teams, because swimming is not a popular sport here in the midsouth, and there are few experienced coaches. This way, the kids get to work with experienced coaches (that work for the club team), and the club team usually ends up picking up some of the more talented high school swimmers who join the club year-round. Anyway, the downside to this arrangement is that the practices are not until 7 p.m. Since we live 45 minutes from the school and the university, this schedule four days a week means I don't get home until 9:30 every night. So my schedule during swim season was to get up at 4, go to the gym from 5-6:30, head to school for the day, from 3:30 to 6:30 stay at school and get grading done or go to the gym again, do swim practice from 7-8:30, and then drive home. When I got home, I would stay up for maybe half an hour, during which I generally did not eat anything--I usually picked something quick up on the way to swim practice--and then go to bed. The next day I'd do it all over again. As I've established in previous posts, my eating habits and self-control are much better when I'm away from home. My husband and I have both agreed that we eat better, and earlier in the evening, away from each other. When we're home together we cook meals that aren't as healthy as they could be, we snack all evening, we eat desserts, or we go out to eat. Plus we generally eat later in the evening because we have to prepare the meal. When swim season switched to lacrosse, my schedule changed. Lacrosse practices were right after school, 3:30-5. Then I'd meet my husband at the gym, and then we'd either go out to eat or we'd go home and cook something (see "eating at home with hubby" problems above). I'd do my grading at home while snacking (or I just wouldn't do it, it would pile up, my girls would get frustrated because their grades weren't posted, and I'd have to go on a frantic grading binge over a weekend to get it all done). Just a bad deal all around.

So I know the schedule change affected my weight loss. It changed both my eating habits and, to a lesser extent, my work out habits. The next thing that happened was around the beginning of April: the time change. I love the "fall back"; I HATE the "spring forward". It's bad enough that I was getting up at 4 in the morning every day to go to the gym, but to make the 4 feel like 3 is just freakin' wrong. So I stopped going to the gym as regularly in the mornings as I did during the winter. I was doing it four or five days a week during the winter, but once the time change hit I was only making it maybe three times a week, sometimes as bad as just once a week. I couldn't adjust. I kept telling myself, give it a week and then you'll be used to it, but I just never got my rhythm back. Only now that school is out have I gotten back even some of my morning routine. And even now, I'm still not as reliable in the mornings as I was, say, back in December.

The last thing that affected the weight loss is my swimming. I love to swim. I would rather swim than do any other form of exercise in the world. Exercise sucks; swimming is fun. I started swimming in the mornings instead of doing my 45-60 minutes of cardio and my 20 minutes of weights because my sister-in-law asked me to do the mile swim portion of the Memphis in May triathlon on a relay team with her and her husband. I figured I needed to build up my endurance and speed a bit so I wouldn't embarrass myself. So I switched my morning work out from cardio and a little weight lifting to swimming, and saved the cardio and weights for later in the day. But here's the thing about swimming: it's great for toning your muscles and giving you a whole-body workout, but it actually sucks for weight loss. Your body wants to defend itself from threats, and there are two threats that your body perceives from swimming: hypothermia and drowning. The human body has the fascinating ability to adapt itself to its daily routine and to its surrounding circumstances. When placed in water regularly, the body wants to make things as easy and safe as possible for itself, so it floats. When you float, you can't drown. It's as simple as that. So the body will actually reserve some of its fat stores to mainain its buoyancy. Even if you are burning lots and lots of calories, it will try to hang onto some of its fat, even sacrificing some muscle. Swimming IS great for maintaining your weight. If you are thin, as many competetive swimmers are because of all the cross-training they do, you won't gain weight while swimming, and your muscles won't bulk up either (this is why you never see big, overly muscular competetive swimmers; they're all lean and mean). Also, swimming takes place in water that is cooler than your body temperature. The best temperature for lap swimming is between 75-80 degrees. This is a water temp that, if you just plan on floating around, may seem a little chilly. But water conducts heat much better than air does, so you heat up and cool down at least twenty times faster in water than out of it. This is why super cold water temperatures produce hypothermia so much faster than cold air. You can be in 50 degree air temperatures for hours and hours with few to no ill effects. But submerge your body in 50 degree water for an hour, and you will have major problems--cooled core temperature, blurry vision, changes in level of consciousness--all signs of hypothermia. So even in water closer to your body temperature, you can lose body heat. Your body does not want hypothermia. So immersion in water that is more than a few degrees cooler than you are produces the peculiar effect of retention of fat. Your body keeps fat on itself to insulate and keep its core temperature where it should be. I know, you probably had no idea your body was so determined to keep you fat. Well, it is. Plus, swimming is a low- to non-impact sport. Sports that jostle you around and make your fat jiggle are better at helping you lose the fat than sports that don't. Jogging=good fat loss. Yoga=not as good. Kick boxing=good fat loss. Walking=not as good. Swimming is great for your joints because there is no pounding on them, no gravity to make them irritated. But the trade-off is, you are participating in a sport that will not help you lose the fat. And when I started swimming regularly instead of doing as much cardio on the elliptical machine (great for fat loss), my body started keeping the fat instead of shedding it. Cardiovascularly, I'm in good shape, and my muscles are strong and toned, but there is a layer of fat over everything that won't go away.

So I know what many of the problems are regarding my loss of weight loss, so to speak. But what to do about them?

Well, first of all, I need to eat better. I've been trying for about two weeks or so to write down what I'm eating. It's not working very well. I'll start out the day fine, but by mid-afternoon I've forgotten a few things, or I've left the notebook in the car, or something else. And it's not what I'm eating the rest of the day that's the problem, it's what I eat for dinner (which doesn't usually get written down by that part of the day). I HAVE TO EAT BETTER. No more splitting the box of hamburger helper between the two of us. No more splitting the large pizza between the two of us. No more fast food meals.

Next, I need to change my work out routine. As much as I love to swim, I'm going to have to sacrifice some of my swimming for something that dumps the fat better. I refuse to abandon swimming entirely, because it's the only form of exercise I like. But I need to make sure I'm doing some cardio in the mornings. During the summer, when I have a lot more time available, I will still swim in the mornings, but I will then go change into my work out clothes and do at least an hour of cardio before going home. Then, when I go back to the gym in the afternoon to work out with my husband, I will do more cardio and my weight lifting. During the school year, I will alternate several mornings each week of swimming with the other mornings of cardio. After school and grading I will either meet my husband at the gym for our afternoon work outs or (during swim season) make sure I get in an afternoon work out at the pool where we have swim practice (I can get a month to month membership at the university; they have a weight room, a track, and the pool so I could do my swimming in the evenings instead).

And last, I have got to realize that weight loss is more important than sleep (to an extent). When my schedule gets thrown off, or the time change comes to get me, I just have to say f$%& it, and still do what needs to be done.

Sorry for the long rant (and so is my husband; I think he's a bit dismayed that I'm in such a suck-ass mood without PMS), but I need something to kick my ass (my fat ass, still, after all this time) back into gear.

*sigh*