Spring, St. Patty's, daylight Savings

I try to limit myself to one blog post per month. This is why I am excited it is March! I am trying to focus my writing hours on my dissertation, but in the afternoons I always hit a wall. During my productive hours, I was working on Chapter 4 and I got the distinct idea for a blog post involving "the chase" so I typed CHASE into clipart and found the following pictures. The character on the far left is happily chasing a butterfly. This is how I feel about my current project.

My boss sent me the link of a YouTube video that apparently went viral, turning a Lady GaGa song into a song about research. The sickening thing is that the professor I teach for posted "It is great to see the students show this kind of creativity, and I am sure that their Professor is proud." I don't think any research advisor would say that about their students if they had spent 80+ hours making such a video. The costumes and redoing all the words to the songs, the choreography and video editing would have taken forever. Anyway, my advisor called me into her office to discuss it and asked me if I feel that way. Like I'm stuck on a bad project. Well, I don't feel that way. I feel like I believe in my project otherwise I wouldn't be wasting my life studying it. I started to think maybe she feels that way about me. Like I am a bad project of hers that she can't quit or get rid of.

The second (middle) figure is an animal chasing its tail. I do feel like this most days. I feel like I am going around and around instead of forward. But I guess that's why they call it RE-search.

The last (right) figure was originally a boy chasing a girl, but for as long as I can remember I've been the other way around. I've been trying to keep up with boys my whole life. I chased them on the playground, at recess, in coursework, math competitions, on my bicycle. It's totally a reoccurring theme in my life. I realized the other day that I have a pattern of trying to do or re-do the same things over and over again, thinking "I'll show them, I'll do it better THIS time." But in that moment, I wondered why I do that. If somebody tells you that you aren't good at something, or aren't fit to do a certain job, why keep trying to do it?

I am so ready for spring. We had the coldest weekend of the year here in Southern California last weekend. I've been superbundled up. My knees have been acting up and I blame the cold weather. Looking forward to the San Dimas Stage Race. Hope we have great weather.

Race Report: Riverside Raincross 5K

Official results (3.1 mi) Place: 239 Div: 21 No: 667 Name: KAYLA KAISER Age: 28 S: F Div: F2529 Town: RIVERSIDE St: CA Time: 34:05 Pace: 11'00"

Unofficial results (3.37 mi) from my

Nike+ device Place: 106 Div: No: Name: Kayla Kaiser Age: 30 S: F Div: F3034 Town: RIVERSIDE St: CA Time: 26:46 Pace: 7'56"

Then check this out: From Official Results Place: 104 Div:3 No: 723 Name: XOCHITL HURD Age: 31 S: F Div: F3034 Town: RIVERSIDE St:CA Time: 26:35 Pace: 8:35

So maybe if I had started right at the front and registered in the right division, I would have finished 10 seconds behind this girl.

So much for my ambitions to place in this race. Looks like last year I got a time of 26:29 with a pace of 08:31 minutes per mile, so I actually beat her last year but didn't post a personal best for this race. Oh well, it's all luck who shows up and who turns it out anyway. I got in a super-brick workout, biking to and from the race and I got to see my friend Matt who won first place overall.

Who cares anyway, right? It's all just numbers. I had mixed feelings about this race. Pro: it was short, there were men in uniform running with us, it didn't rain and the air was perfectly cool and clear. Con: the mistakes on my entry form, dodging puddles and people from the back of the pack to finish somewhere in the middle, and the official timing not starting when the chip crosses the starting line. Unfortunately, although my Nike+ device does not keep proper distance because my stride is shorter than average, it keeps good time and I started and stopped it right at the starting and finish lines. So I am happy with my performance.

Who am I kidding, do I claim to be a runner? Well, really what motivated me to run in this race this was my personal desire to make my body the best it can be. I'm choosing to call it "sculpting" now. My body had become "like a mozzarella" as my amica Italiana Claudia says. So it doesn't matter if I came in first, third, or thirtieth, the important thing is that I enjoyed myself. It was fun to see the kiddos run in the 1K race and to see families outdoors interacting in a beautiful park. I was actually running so fast, I didn't enjoy the scenery much. Except along the ridge overlooking the Santa Ana river basin, that part was bomb.

What I'm thinking now is how wonderful my husband is to drive up and see me. I had considered taking the Amtrak train from Riverside to Oceanside. It's leaving right now actually and would have taken me 3 hours, costing $34. If we take the car it's about $12 for gas each way but I am thinking we are going to have to save up some money for new tires. At least the insurance is paid through August so we hope the car will last at least that long.

So many wonderful things are coming up in the next few months, I'm almost beside myself with joy. I am trying to keep my body moving and stress-free, as much as it is possible to do so when I am trying to make progress on so many fronts continuously and simultaneously. I am putting myself in some serious pain, but isn't why they invented antinflammatories (see prev post)? I just noticed I put a bunch of tags on this post and I don't have time to write on all those topics. So I'll just stick with the blog post title: Race Report. This race was AWESOME.

To soy or not to soy... part II

Flavonoids are thought to affect their anticancer properties by a variety of mechanisms. One route is by inhibiting cytochrome P450 (CYPs) from activating procarcinogens. Another route is by inducing phase II enzymes, facilitating carcinogen elimination from the body. Some flavonoids can even affect promotion and progression of carcinogenesis by interfering directly with cell cycle, angiogenesis, invasion and apoptosis. Of course, these properties have been investigated in vitro and the bioavailability and speciation of flavonoids (and their glycosylated relatives) needs further study.

As for me, I guess I will continue to eat soy in moderation. I am not convinced it is harmful. Nor do I believe that genes from genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) will spring into my DNA. FYI, 93% of the soy raised in the US has been genetically modified to confer herbicide tolerance, compared to 77% globally. That's all the science I have to share with you today.

It's two weeks until my next race and I am feeling fatter and lazier than ever. Looking for that motivation... where's it gone?

To soy or not to soy...

Today I was craving my old standby for days spent writing a thesis -- the soy latte. I started drinking these upon the advice of a personal trainer. She was concerned that if I started burning calories with workouts, my body would utilize my own muscle mass as an energy source if I didn't incorporate more protein into my diet. She suggested substituting dairy milk with soymilk in my coffee for starters. That was waaaay back in the early 2000's when I lived in Arizona, worked out at 24 Hour Fitness, and was a size 16 at 175 pounds.

My diet right now is all messed up. I am super stressed and craving carbs galore. I am spending days and days in front of the computer and not spending time outdoors taking exercise. I am

anxious that I will look down at my belly one day and not be able to see my feet on the scale which reads 180 pounds again. When I felt healthier, I craved milk so why am I all of a sudden reaching for soy?

Clif bars have become a staple of my diet, which contain soy protein and a ton of ready-for-action carbs. I like them because they are easily digestible and allow me about 2 more hours of productivity from the time I eat them to when I start to feel hungry again. Easy to eat on the run. The company uses soy protein because it provides amino acids in a vegetarian-friendly form. The other pillar in my diet right now is Premier Nutrition shakes (chocolate and vanilla) which are fortified with milk isolate protein & whey concentrate. So I am getting a non-soy source of protein too! These are also individually packaged as well for on-the-go days.

I have heard repeatedly that Clif bars are essentially junk food. Just because these items are marketed as "healthy" they may in fact be harmful to me. So I decided to investigate for myself whether soy is harmful or helpful. It seems the literature is full of contradictions. Some claim to have shown that soy is harmful and the studies that tout its benefits can only demonstrate a marginal difference from a placebo.

Isoflavones are part of a class of molecules called FLAVONOIDS. Isoflavones are molecules made by plants which are thought to (1) have harmful estrogenic effects in the animals that eat them and (2) have helpful health-promoting effects on the animals that eat them such as preventing cancer and cardiovascular disease and (3) are used by the plant for recruitment of rhizobacteria and pollinator animals. These studies were of particular interest in light of the molecules I have been studying in my research.

I have been looking at flavonols in the model plant Arabidopsis, while another colleague in my lab has been looking at anthocyanins in pomegranate. The structural similarity between isoflavones (phytoestrogens) and the estrogen made by animals (17-b-estradiol) is pretty low to my eyes. This entire class of molecules has low toxicity in animals, which is why we enjoy so many foods that contain these molecules.

Levels of isoflavones in soy are high, which I found in the USDA 2008 report on the isoflavone content of 557 food items (I have pulled out only a few of these for the purposes of this blog). Clif bars contain even more isoflavones per 100 grams than soybeans. For some reason blogger isn't letting me use more than 3 images per post, so this topic will be continued shortly...

Carbs, Calcium, Cortisol, oh my!

What is going on? I feel like crap. I don't even want to exercise. I am once again mildly overweight. I cannot seem to keep myself at a healthy BMI.

I feel like my metabolism has dropped off the radar. Either I'm not eating enough, not sleeping enough, or I am too stressed. http://caloriecount.about.com/tools has revealed that I am consistently eating ~1200 cals per day. This is enough to support a sedentary lifestyle, which I am living now with the exception of 150 min per week of cardio (my bicycle commute). I am showing a deviation from the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of calcium (unless I eat yogurt and have a glass of milk in the same day), iron (unless I eat 8 oz. greens), and potassium (no matter what). Maybe I'm just depleated and that makes me tired and that makes me lazy and that makes me fat! I had to get out a different set of pants for teaching because I have definitely increased in size.

My training buddy told me to force my body to eat fats and it would in turn start to burn fats because it would get used to using fat as an energy source. Also hills! I'll let you know how it goes. From mapmyride.com I can see that in early/mid 2010, I was spending more time cross training with biking and running (40-60% of workout calories in a month were burned in runs). From September on (when I started creeping up in weight), even though I was burning the same number of calories per month, I was not cross-training as much. Instead of being balanced in my workouts, I was burning 80-90% of monthly calories (4000-6000) on biking and 5% on running. So running it is. And eating like a runner too.

Free association

Frisbee. Cinnamon rolls. The smell of a puppy. Vanilla candles. Waves crashing. Sunsets & sunrises. A good pair of shoes. A good pair of trousers. A nice hairbrush. Chamber music. A hug. Birdsong. A warm gentle breeze. Snow gently falling.

Race Report: Holiday Half Marathon

Yeah so it's been a rough quarter. I've been flying by the seat of my pants since returning from Europe. Like treading water in a choppy sea, I have been breathing in bursts and wearing myself out just trying to stay afloat. To top it all off, I signed up for a half-marathon the week I returned from Europe and didn't really train for it (unless you count one 9 mile walk/run last month).

So I would first like to say that the course was achingly beautiful with stunning views of the the LA County Fairgrounds, Fairplex Horse Racing Park, Auto Club Raceway, Puddingstone Lake, Bonelli Regional Park, surrounded by the Glendora Foothills and San Gabriel Mountains. Whew! The first 8 miles totally flew by while I ran in the midst of such amazing scenery.

Some of the thoughts I had during the race:

Mile 3: Everyone has to run their own race. You can't go at someone else's pace. To enjoy the experience to the fullest extent, you must look nowhere else but inside yourself for direction.

Mile 6-8: Jingle bell, Jingle bell, Jingle bell rock... Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose... Up on the housetop reindeer paws, out jumps good old Santa Claus...

Mile 8-10: I left, I left, I left my shoe in Tombouctou with fifty holes and a bucket of glue 'cause I thought it was right, right, right for my blister, whoop-de-da

Mile 11: I can still finish in 2:22, why are my legs not working, oh yeah cause I didn't train! Just put one foot in front of the other. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9…98-99-100-1-2-3-4…98-99-100…

Mile 13: FINALLY!

So you can see that as my glucose levels dropped, the profoundness of my thoughts did too. I am so happy I signed up for this event. I feel totally enlivened by the experience. And it didn't hurt to share it with 3 of the most awesome ladies in my life right now.