Too much junk in the trunk?

Sometimes when I run by a building with mirrors or reflecting glass, I sneak a peak at myself to check my form. What I see is not often very flattering. It looks like I'm literally dragging my ass.

I've got these skinny legs, and skinny arms, but my ass belongs on a man who weighs at least 30 pounds more than I do. When you have to buy jeans that are one or two sizes too big in the waist because of your ass, then yeah, you got a big ass. And that's me.

But I will no longer lament having too much junk in the trunk.

I just came across this Harvard Medical School Study that said people with bigger booties are at a lower risk for Type 2 diabetes.

(Trust me, I'm not foo-foo enough to read Harvard studies. But I saw this link flashing on, of all places, the Huffington Post. The question they should've asked: Whose got the bigger boo-tay: Barack or Hillary?)

Anyway, the study actually says the kind of fat you have can lower your risk level. Subcutaneous (uh-oh, big word alert) fat, they say, is the key, and subcutaneous fat is often found on the buttocks, say the experts.

Big butts, rejoice.

Weight loss: Too much of a good thing?

A few months ago, I lamented my weight, which was a shade over 170 and figured I was drinking too much wine during the week, which was causing my weight to stay the same even though I was running pretty much four to five times a week, averaging close to 30 miles a week.
Then, I figured out that I could keep drinking wine and still lose weight reasonably as long as I picked up my pace during my morning runs. Say, from 9:30 minute miles to under 9.

Of my last 15 runs, 14 have averaged under 9 minute miles, including five under 8 minute miles.
I got on the scale today after a 6-miler and it read: 1 6 2

Whoa. Now some of that is lost water weight from the run. I was 166 when I went to bed Monday night, with a nice wine buzz courtesy of a 2004 Marietta Cellars Zinfandel. (Thanks for the recommendation, Run Dangerously. It was a yummy wine, very fruit forward.)

I don't wanna be confused for a the kind of person who frets about every pound lost or gained. In fact, I worry that maybe I'm losing weight toooo fast. We're talking about 8 pounds in two months. At this rate, I'll look like the black, male version of Karen Carpenter by October.

So what do I do now? Keep running fast. Keep drinking wine. Eat more donuts.

Too much Cabernet, not enough 5k

On Feb. 19, I wrote in a post that I thought the reason I was not losing weight was because I was drinking too much wine. I said I would limit my wine drinking to the weekends. At the time, my weight was 171 pounds. That was 16 days ago. I was 167 pounds this morning.
Wooo-hooo.
But......... I have not exactly kept the promise to myself of not drinking during the week. Stressed from work, I stopped at Put a Cork In It Wine and got a bottle of Santa Ema Reserve Merlot Maipo Valley. Yummy, yummy. You put this stuff in a big wine glass and you can smell the leather, and it is very chocolaty.
The week before, I also had a mid-week bottle of wine, a 2005 Yountville Napa Valley Cabernet from Charles Krug by the Peter Mondavi family. This is a big cab, I mean big. And smooth. I taste some coffee, some cherries. Awesome tannins. Long finish.
So, I drank, but I still lost weight.
So maybe the wine drinking was not the blame for my once expanding waistline. I looked at my running log and noticed that my running pace has been sub 9:00 minute per mile in six of the 11 runs since I swore off drinking during the week. In the 11 runs before I made that promise, only three of my runs averaged a pace faster than a 9-minute mile.
So, here's what this tells me: Run fast, drink wine, lose weight. Run slow, drink wine, maintain weight.
Well, it's a lot more fun to run fast and drink wine. But, I'll keep it in moderation. I will only drink one bottle during the week (if that) and not limit myself during the weekend.
I know, I sound like I should be in AA.

Weighty matters

I was reading somewhere the other day that to run your best, you have to be height-weight proportionate. They've got some formula that says you should double your height in inches and thats what your weight should be. And they say every pound over your idea weight slows you by 2.5 seconds per mile.
Hmmmm. I'm 5-8, 170 pounds. That's 34 pounds more than they say I should be to run my best race. That's 1 minute, 25 seconds per mile slower than I should be, according to the experts. Well, I'll never be that small or that fast. But this whole weight thing is odd. I've been running at least four times a week every week since April 2004, and I've only seen a change in my weight because of the running once: When I trained for the Dec. 2005 White Rock Marathon, the increase in miles _ from 20 miles a week to an average of 30 miles a week with one peak week of 40 miles _ knocked the pounds off. I went from 165 at the beginning of August to 148 by late November.
And I could tell the difference in the running, too. I was light on my feet.
You'd think I'd lose even more weight last year, training for White Rock. I had a 12 week stretch where I averaged 35 to 40 miles a week, with peak weeks of 45 and 50 miles, two runs of 20 miles and two others of 18. But when I lined up for the start of the race, I was about 167 pounds, just 6 pounds less than when the training started.
Today, I'm 170. No matter how much I run and how fast, this weight is not going anywhere.