Frequently Asked Questions

2008-08-28T13:55:00.000-07:00

This FAQ section is organized into the following sub-headers:

About Running and Biking

I thought you were a runner – but it seems like you never run anymore. What’s up with that?
What kind of bike do you have?
What are your bicycling safety tips?
Do you have any suggestions for becoming a better runner or starting to run?
When did you start running and why?
Do you take rest days?
Do you strength train?
How much do you weigh and how much weight did you lose?
Do you have any before and after pictures?

About Product Reviews

What's the deal with your product reviews?

About Injuries

What is wrong with your knees?
How can I avoid an injury?

About Eating

Are you a vegetarian?
Are you ever concerned about overeating because exercising makes you feel so hungry?
How many calories a day do you eat?
What are your favorite foods?
What are your least favorite foods?

About Caitlin's Life

What kind of dogs do you have?
What is the Husband like?
When did you get married?
What do you do for a living?

About Healthy Living

What are your tips for people who looking to adopt healthier habits?
What's the most important food change you think someone can make?
What's the most important fitness change you think someone can make?
What's the key to healthy living success?

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About Running and Biking

I thought you were a runner – but it seems like you never run anymore. What’s up with that?

In 2008, I was diagnosed with Chondromalacia, a degenerative knee condition. There’s no real reason it happened; it was just rotten luck that my body is built the way it is. It was very hard for me to accept that I could not/should not run long distances anymore. Instead, I’ve begun to bike ride, swim, and cross-train. To read more about my injury, scroll down to the “About Injuries” section of the FAQ.

What kind of bike do you have?

I have a Giant road bike, which retails for about $1,400. I bought it used for $350. I definitely recommend buying a used bike!

What are your bicycling safety tips?

Bicycling is very fun, but it also can be very dangerous. Be sure to always carry identification with you and a copy of your health insurance. I wear a Road ID and love it. Also, bring your cell phone. Bike on trails or within designated bike lanes and always follow the rules of traffic. Tell someone when you are going for a long ride and when to expect you back. Above all else, always keep your eyes on the road in front of you, do not make sudden movements, and brake slowly!

Do you have any suggestions for becoming a better runner or starting to run?

Sure! Check out my "tips" page. My number one tip is to just STICK WITH IT for a few weeks, and running may just grow on you!

When did you start running and why?

I started to run towards the end of college. I wanted to change my unhealthy habits and lose a few pounds. Once I began to educate myself more about fitness and nutrition, I became HOOKED. I enjoyed running for many reasons: I could do it whenever, wherever. It gave me a great calorie burn--it is by far the most effective workout I've ever tried. Also, running gave me a chance to mediate, gather my thoughts, and burn off some energy.

Do you take rest days?

Of course! I do work out 3-4 days a week. I have a very hectic work schedule that you can read about here. Rest days are very important as they help you heal and prevent overuse injuries.

Do you strength train?

Yes! During the week, I frequently feature "10 Minute Strength Training' workouts in my morning posts, which include a combination of push-ups, sit-ups and other ab work, and other strength moves.

How much do you weigh and how much weight did you lose?

I am 5 ft 3 and weigh 119 lbs. My weight fluctuates up and down every day (like most people). In college, I weighed about 130 and had little to no muscle mass. My current weigh is my “happy weight,” meaning I do not have to calorie count or obsess about every bite to maintain it. I've maintained my weight loss by doing three things:

1) I stopped socially drinking for the most part. I went from having alcohol (and late night pizza runs) 4 or 5 times a week to maybe once a week.
2) I began to exercise at least 4 times a week. I joined a gym near my work and went in the morning.
3) I began to focus on eating whole foods and used a food diary to track my calorie intake. I believe a food diary a great tool for those trying to lose weight. Keeping a food diary allows you to gain control over your portions and snacking habits, and it is helpful even if you just do it for a week or so. There is a great deal of research on how tracking your intake is key to losing the weight and keeping it off. I no longer do this, but it was very helpful during my weight loss journey.

Do you have any before and after pictures?

Yes - I will share! Here are I in late 2003, at 130 lbs (I want to point out that I do not think 130 pounds is overweight for most women. I have an extremely small frame):

My girlfriends and I had gone to Miami for Spring Break, and when the photos came back (this is pre-digital days), I was so embarrassed when I saw them. I remember thinking that I looked... a little sloppy! It was a lousy feeling. I didn't manage to turn things around for two more years, but that yucky feeling haunted me for a while.

Here I am in June 2008, at 119 pounds.

About Product Reviews

Check out my product review page here.

About Injuries

What is wrong with your knees?

Unfortunately, about 2 years after I began to run, I developed a knee condition called Chondromalacia. Read about my diagnosis here. Chondromalacia is a degenerative knee condition in which the cartilage softens and the patellar bone began less stable. I was advised to quit running, but it took me about 5 months to truly come around to the idea. I wore knee sleeves that really helped. But eventually, I decided to take 1 month off of running in April 2009 and since then, I haven't really run at all.

Instead, I began to focus on cross-training, especially biking. I've had a road bike for about two years but just recently started to get into riding. I usually go on a 25+ mile long ride once a week and I try to ride about 40 miles in total each week. I love it, and it doesn't hurt my knees!

How can I avoid an injury?

My best advice is 1) make sure you take adequate rest days; 2) never increase your exercise intensity or duration suddenly; and 3) make sure you are eating enough. If you are running, follow a training plan and be sure to never increase your weekly mileage by more than 10% at a time.

Also, I cannot tell you how many e-mails I get from people that start off with “My knee hurts whenever I walk, but I have a race this weekend. Do you think I can run it?” If you are in pain, you should NOT be running or perhaps even exercising until the pain goes away completely. One week off exercise is a lot better than months in a cast due to a stress fracture or a torn ligament.

About Eating

Are you a vegetarian?

Yes. I became a vegetarian on April 26, 2009. I do not eat meat for moral reasons. Read the post here.

Are you ever concerned about overeating because exercising makes you feel so hungry?

I can understand the tough balance between stepping up your exercise and fueling adequately without OVEREATING. One of the things I do is I try not to eat too much (calorie-wise) at any meal. If I only eat 350 calories at lunch and I get hungry by 2, I eat a small snack (250 calories or so) and I don't feel bad about it because I know I ate a light lunch. On the other hand, if I had slammed 600 calories at lunch, I still would probably get hungry by 3, but I wouldn't feel right about snacking again.

Also, I figure that biking/running burns a LOT of calories. On a 6.0-mile run, I burn 600 calories, and on a 20-mile bike ride, I burn about 900. If I need around 1700-1800 to maintain my weight, that means I can eat 2300-2400 calories during the day. It's rare I eat that much because I have a lot of low calorie foods (yogurt, fruit, veggies, lean meats), so that means I probably won't even make my net calories for the day. This "evens out" days I don't work out and still eat 1800-2000 calories!

Getting a heart rate monitor was great because it always me to "know" how many calories I burned, which I feel gives me more freedom to eat in the day.

The point is that I don't stress out about calories too much because 1) I have a system that allows me to eat all the time without overeating at any one meal or over the course of the day and 2) I burn so many calories running that on days where I do overindulge, my exercise probably just erases it.

How many calories a day do you eat?

Honestly, I don't count calories anymore, but I eat 1,800 to 2,400 calories a day, depending on my workout. Sometimes I eat more, sometimes I eat less. When I was trying to lose weight, I shot for a food intake of 1,600 calories, regardless of my workouts; however, I definitely did not work out as hard then as I do now. Check out my How I Fuel page for more.

What are your favorite foods?

My favorite foods include: yogurt (Greek is the best!), cereal or granola, and chocolate. I love fresh fruit. I have a weakness for creme brulee. Of course, I love oatmeal. A good beer every now and then is great, too! :)

What are your least favorite foods?

I actually have a severe avocado allergy. I'm also allergic to latex; it's a quite common cross reaction. Although I am only moderately allergic to latex, if I even touch an avocado, my body go nuts. The last time I had a reaction, I almost had to go to the ER for anaphylactic shock! It scared Future Husband pretty badly! So, unfortunately, I cannot eat sushi as it is prepared in the same area the chefs chop the avocado. I also don't like fake nacho cheese... it's just odd!

About Caitlin's Life

What kind of dogs do you have?

Maggie is a dachshund. She's a special coloring called piebald. She'll be 5 years old as of August 2009.

James is a dachshund/German Shepard mix. He'll be four in January 2010.

What is the Husband like?

The Husband (who's real name is Kristien) and I have been dating since we were 19 years old. He is the love of my life!

The Husband is studying to be a Physician of Oriental Medicine, and he enjoys and appreciates exercising and eating well. Like most men, he eats like a horse and will consume anything I put in front of him, including tofu and vegetables. He’s transitioning to be vegetarianism as well. The Husband is very busy, but he loves playing sports, lifting weights, and the cardio machines at the gym. As a couple, one of the things that binds us together is our mutual love of learning about the human body. We share fun facts about nutrition all the time!

Fun facts about my lovely Husband:

He is British and moved to American when he was 16.
After he met me when we were 18, he asked our mutual friends if I was single yet for a year and a half before I finally was and then he asked me out! We dated long distance for a year and a half.
He has lived in 25 different houses and three different countries.
He refuses to squash bugs in the house because he loves animals so much.
He is a sports fanatic but his favorite sport is football (English football, not American football!).
He is a wino and knows a lot about wine.
He is an excellent golf player and even won a national competition when he was 13.
He's a good singer and I think he should try out for American Idol.
He refuses to eat yogurt or bananas. Overall, he's a really healthy eater.

When did you get married?

We got married on January 3, 2009. You can read about how the Husband proposed to me here. You can read the summary post here. You can read the recap of my rehearsal dinner here.

After the wedding, we traveled to Napa Valley and San Francisco for our honeymoon. You can read the honeymoon posts here, here, here, here, and here.

What do you do for a living?

I am an urban planner, but I work from home. Also, I work part-time at a holistic center as an office manager. And I blog! You can read about my hectic schedule here.

About Healthy Living

What are your tips for people who looking to adopt healthier habits?

The biggest piece of advice I could give anyone is start slow. The worst thing you can do is try to overhaul your fitness and eating habits overnight. It took years to develop your "bad" habits; it will take more than a few days to break them.

Let's say you're starting from healthy eating ground zero -- fast food, frozen dinners, no vegetables. Trying to figure out how to cook all your meals, eat more produce, and manage your own snacks could be overwhelming! Instead of a complete diet overhaul, just focus on improving one meal (like breakfast) for two weeks. Or try replacing one of your snacks with a piece of fruit.

Same thing goes for exercise -- instead of attempting to go from couch potato to marathon runner in three months, just commit to doing 30 minutes of exercise three times a week.

In summary, choose goals that are quantifiable and attainable, and then work your way up from there!

The other piece of advice I would give to healthy living "newbies" is to take what you see on blogs and read in magazines with a grain of salt. What works for one person might not work for you. It's important to listen to your own body and figure out what YOU need. Also, do not demand perfection from yourself. Part of healthy living is eating chocolate cake, having a few glasses of wine, and watching TV instead of going for a run -- balance is very important, and it helps prevent you from getting burnt out.

What's the most important food change you think someone can make?

In my opinion, the most important thing a person can do is READ LABELS. And I don't mean just the nutritional information -- I mean the actual ingredient list. I'm a big believer in eating as many whole, unprocessed, natural foods as possible given your lifestyle. You literally are what you eat, and do you want to be a bunch of chemicals? I think not!

If you don't recognize an ingredient on the list, GOOGLE IT! I look up ingredients all the time. Being an educated label-reader is a must.

What's the most important fitness change you think someone can make?

It's important to find a healthy activity that YOU like to do. Some people like running; some people hate it. Some people love yoga; some people hate it. There is truly an activity out there for everyone, so if one particular workout makes you miserable, explore other options!

What's the key to healthy living success?

The key to healthy living is having the right mental attitude. You can eat perfectly and exercise regularly, but if you are miserable on the inside, it really doesn't matter, does it? Speaking from personal experience, I know it is possible to "train" yourself to be more positive and happy. You can CHOOSE to have a better mental attitude.

One little thing you can do to improve your mental attitude is stop fat talking! For more info, visit my End Fat Talk page.

Healthy Tipping Point - FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions