I had a major breakthrough at the end of April finally breaking past my previous low weight of 185.4 to reach 184.9 pounds. It took months and months and months of work to undo the impact of poor eating habits over the period before I started work at my new job last year, and the holidays at the turn of this year.
My personal trainer, Mr. Fitness, was a major part of this turnaround. Another part - - a very big part, as it happens - - was my disciplined eating habits. Reducing snacking and keeping my calories within a reasonable range helped me drop the weight slowly but steadily. The workouts helped me improve my overall fitness and get me toned. Together the eating habits and my workouts combine to improve my fitness level every week.
At the end of April, right after hitting this milestone, I went home to Edmonton for a holiday. Healthy eating habits went out the window with numerous dinners out combined with unhealthy-ish food at the Patriarch's house. After I got back from Edmonton I had a few moderately good weeks, then it was back on a plane to New York and all the food and drink that one finds there. More eating out, and more street food. It turns out that I am very good at finding food in New York. Hey, a girl's gotta have a skill.
After this veritable smörgåsbord of eating and drinking I knew it would take a few weeks of highly disciplined eating and intense workouts to get me back into shouting distance of my previous low.
So that's what I did. I kicked the workouts up a notch and I stopped snacking at the office. After the usual 3 or 4 day withdrawal period this was no longer a major struggle and I found it relatively easy to stay on track with my eating plan. Now after a couple of "clean" eating weeks I have virtually no desire to snack and it is much easier for me to manage my food consumption every day.
I am now back down to 186 pounds and change, a mere whisper away from my previous low milestone of 184.9 pounds. I feel toned and strong and am noticing that my clothes are fitting better than before.
On the one hand it is easy to get despondent about putting myself through what is essentially a 2-month plateau. One week of really bad eating requires at least 6 weeks of good behaviour to undo - - yikes! That math really sucks.
On the other hand it is wonderful to know what works and to have the confidence to apply what works knowing that it will pay dividends sooner or later.
On the "sooner or later" front, one comparatively recent innovation is that I no longer set time limits on myself to lose "x" pounds/week or to reach my goal weight by a specific date. As long as I am making positive strides in controlling my eating or pushing my exercising or I see that I am losing something (no matter how little), I remain positive. I know that the way my body behaves it will lose a little, or none at all and then suddenly lose pound after pound in its own good time - - as long as I stick to my program. Although I would like to control when the weight comes off I am apparently not the boss of this and so have gradually learned how to accept the uncertainty (although admittedly with more zen-like calm some weeks than others).
All in all, then, it has been a good couple of weeks. I am sticking to my program and I continue to see progress. That makes me very happy.
Showing posts with label eating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eating. Show all posts
Saturday, 20 June 2015
Monday, 29 December 2014
*dusts self off*
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| Photo by Patrick Dockens, licensed CC-BY-NC-ND |
December well and truly kicked my progress in its proverbial ass. The combination of 5 lunches out, 6 dinner parties, 3 large family festive meals, numerous cocktail hours, and eating approximately all of the sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, chocolates, and bourbon balls (i.e. literally dozens of these damn things) have led to me being a full 17.1 pounds higher than I was at my lowest before the holidays. This puts me essentially where I was last year at this time strangely enough, so in a twisted way it's a kind of maintenance. Bad maintenance, but maintenance nonetheless.
Let that be a lesson for me. As if I didn't already know this (duh!), December's debauchery has taught me that if I simply eat whatever I want whenever I want, and if I combine this with skipping workouts for a week and a half in a row, I will put on weight. I know, I know, this is not exactly earth shattering news. Some would call it "glaringly obvious". Some would also ask "didn't you learn this the last time you went off the plan"? Sometimes it's nice to be reminded, however, especially when one is a slow learner.
Simply put, I allowed myself to get lazy and undisciplined this month, and I gave myself permission to break routine. By doing so, I also gave myself permission to gain 17 pounds. That's my choice, and now I get to deal with the consequences of my choice.
I am not despondent about this little setback. I know it's hard to look at 17 pounds as a "setback", but it's really only that. Now that the holidays are over I have Mr. Fitness coming over to kick my ass tomorrow night in a return to my weekly sessions with the personal trainer. The Nerd and I have recommitted to eating healthy and have thrown out all the leftover holiday chocolates that we received at Christmas. I worked out this morning (for the first time in more than a week - gack!), and I received wonderful new workout clothes and 2 kettle bells (20 lb and 25 lb) for Christmas. I feel reinvigorated and ready to get back into my healthy routine. As part of this recommitment, I have restarted my MyFitnessPal calculator to my current weight (!) and reset my "days logged in" tracker to 1 - - although I was logging in during December, I was barely tracking a fraction of all the food I was consuming, so it's really day 1 of the new routine.
The key to success of course is to shut my piehole. As in, to stop snacking on all the things. We have cleared out all of the junk food from the house and by the time I next set foot in the office I will have 4 days of healthy balanced eating and workouts under my belt to help get me over the initial craving stage while my body readjusts to healthy calorie levels.
I am actually quite looking forward to seeing how my body changes and gets stronger with the personal trainer. I will take a "before" photo tomorrow and do measurements to set the starting baseline, and over the coming months I will see what happens as I push myself and improve my fitness with the new routines Mr. Fitness will show me.
My objective is simple: lose the final 40 pounds by this time next year. Since I am setting this goal before New Year's Eve it does not count as a resolution - - it is merely a redefined goal. The distinction may seem a fine one, but it is critical because most people do not follow through on their resolutions. Goals, however, are a different story. And this one is totally attainable - - I have a great support network and a solid plan along with the resources to accomplish it.
So let's face 2015 recharged and ready for the challenge! Bring it on!
Saturday, 8 November 2014
Broke 190 for the first time in a year
It has been a hard-fought past 12 months. I battled depression and crippling job stress and reverted to all my negative eating behaviours along the way. It was only when I got my new job that I was able to muster the determination to say: "It stops here. I can't change the past 12 months, but I can change the next 12".
And I did. I went back to first principles of what I know worked for me - - tracking my food and pushing my workouts. Along the way I got back in touch with this whole lifestyle change that I was supposed to be doing (rather than merely losing weight). That has been perhaps the most profound thing I have discovered in this journey - - it really is all about the lifestyle, stupid. There ain't no such thing as a quick fix, and negative habits will always generate negative consequences.
The results have been just what I had hoped - - and more, and less.
The weight is coming off again, and this morning after my workout I weighed in at 189.8 pounds, a number on the scale I have not seen for about a year. I have also noticed that as I continue along this path (and as I get older) the weight takes more work to lose. I used to see relatively consistent losses every month. Now I am seeing punctuated equilibrium: I stay relatively the same for a week or so, then have one week of surprisingly easy losses, then "girl time" adds 4 pounds of gratuitous bloating, then I spend 2 weeks trying to get back to where I was before nature's awesome majesty took my hormones on a ride. Over the past few months I have seen this pattern repeated over and over again, and I am slowly starting to change my mindset from disappointment if a given week is not lower on the scale to focusing on the longer window of a month. So although the individual days or weeks (depending on the week) may see frustratingly little weight loss, overall the months are still showing losses, and I am still moving in the right direction.
On an even more positive side, the Nerd and I are slowly starting to transition into more of a maintenance mode rather than a hard core weight loss mode. I say this not because we do not have weight to lose - - we do - - but because we are starting to make adjustments to make our lifestyle more sustainable in the long term.
For me that means a step change reduction in calories from an average of 1,600 - 1,800 calories per day to trying to keep under my 1,430 calories per day objective (!) without having to eat back all of my exercise calories. I usually come in somewhere between 1,400 and 1,600 calories a day, and even the difference of 200 calories (on average) per day has had profound results.
Staying under my calorie target organically has allowed me to do things like take additional rest days, or to use long walks as exercise rather than brutally exhausting elliptical workouts, while still losing weight. I have a more normal life, and that is kind of nice. As I age I also find it a bit tougher to maintain the intensity of the workout schedule that I used to - - after almost 3 years that kind of work takes its toll on a body. Mine, in particular.
All of this is in aid of changing me into a person who eats sensibly more often than I do not, and who works out to feel good rather than because she has to. Don't get me wrong, I still use workouts as a way to enable a good day of food when I know I am going out, but I am trying to focus more on the every day consumption levels as well. It certainly seems to be working for now.
It is more difficult in many ways than simply jumping on the elliptical, because I have to be so diligent about what is going into my mouth every day, all day. But in aggregate this approach seems to be working, and even the bake sale day of a thousand rice krispie squares and gingerbread men (omnomnom) did not set me back for long.
I know I am prone to wild mood swings about my weight loss journey, and I am always more optimistic when the weight is coming off easily as it has been this week rather than those weeks when I am doing exactly the same things and the scale is not moving at all, or worse, moves only upwards.
However I have noticed over the last few months as I have been starting to discover my body's new rhythms that I am more relaxed about the tough weeks because I am more confident that the good weeks will come. I am gradually becoming more disciplined in my routine, and I am able to be more zen about my progress as a result.
Not that I am zen, exactly, I am only zen-er than previously. But I will take it, just as I take this new (revisited) milestone of breaking into the 180s. I have worked hard for this, and I am feeling good.
And I did. I went back to first principles of what I know worked for me - - tracking my food and pushing my workouts. Along the way I got back in touch with this whole lifestyle change that I was supposed to be doing (rather than merely losing weight). That has been perhaps the most profound thing I have discovered in this journey - - it really is all about the lifestyle, stupid. There ain't no such thing as a quick fix, and negative habits will always generate negative consequences.
The results have been just what I had hoped - - and more, and less.
The weight is coming off again, and this morning after my workout I weighed in at 189.8 pounds, a number on the scale I have not seen for about a year. I have also noticed that as I continue along this path (and as I get older) the weight takes more work to lose. I used to see relatively consistent losses every month. Now I am seeing punctuated equilibrium: I stay relatively the same for a week or so, then have one week of surprisingly easy losses, then "girl time" adds 4 pounds of gratuitous bloating, then I spend 2 weeks trying to get back to where I was before nature's awesome majesty took my hormones on a ride. Over the past few months I have seen this pattern repeated over and over again, and I am slowly starting to change my mindset from disappointment if a given week is not lower on the scale to focusing on the longer window of a month. So although the individual days or weeks (depending on the week) may see frustratingly little weight loss, overall the months are still showing losses, and I am still moving in the right direction.
On an even more positive side, the Nerd and I are slowly starting to transition into more of a maintenance mode rather than a hard core weight loss mode. I say this not because we do not have weight to lose - - we do - - but because we are starting to make adjustments to make our lifestyle more sustainable in the long term.
For me that means a step change reduction in calories from an average of 1,600 - 1,800 calories per day to trying to keep under my 1,430 calories per day objective (!) without having to eat back all of my exercise calories. I usually come in somewhere between 1,400 and 1,600 calories a day, and even the difference of 200 calories (on average) per day has had profound results.
Staying under my calorie target organically has allowed me to do things like take additional rest days, or to use long walks as exercise rather than brutally exhausting elliptical workouts, while still losing weight. I have a more normal life, and that is kind of nice. As I age I also find it a bit tougher to maintain the intensity of the workout schedule that I used to - - after almost 3 years that kind of work takes its toll on a body. Mine, in particular.
All of this is in aid of changing me into a person who eats sensibly more often than I do not, and who works out to feel good rather than because she has to. Don't get me wrong, I still use workouts as a way to enable a good day of food when I know I am going out, but I am trying to focus more on the every day consumption levels as well. It certainly seems to be working for now.
It is more difficult in many ways than simply jumping on the elliptical, because I have to be so diligent about what is going into my mouth every day, all day. But in aggregate this approach seems to be working, and even the bake sale day of a thousand rice krispie squares and gingerbread men (omnomnom) did not set me back for long.
I know I am prone to wild mood swings about my weight loss journey, and I am always more optimistic when the weight is coming off easily as it has been this week rather than those weeks when I am doing exactly the same things and the scale is not moving at all, or worse, moves only upwards.
However I have noticed over the last few months as I have been starting to discover my body's new rhythms that I am more relaxed about the tough weeks because I am more confident that the good weeks will come. I am gradually becoming more disciplined in my routine, and I am able to be more zen about my progress as a result.
Not that I am zen, exactly, I am only zen-er than previously. But I will take it, just as I take this new (revisited) milestone of breaking into the 180s. I have worked hard for this, and I am feeling good.
Sunday, 12 October 2014
On Motivation and Discipline
I have been noodling over the question of motivation for some time now. I first began working out (most recently) more than two and a half years ago, and when I started I was, to put it mildly, extremely motivated to lose weight. Breaking a chair in front of your closest friends and their partners will do that.
A little more than a year ago, however, my motivation started to flag and my eating habits began to revert to their prior state. My unhappiness with my job led me to rationalize all sorts of destructive emotional eating, and although I was still working out 6 days a week, those workouts became less intense over time, and more pro forma. We all know that you can't outrun your fork, yes? And I was carrying a BIG fork.
Time passed and I got a wonderful new job and I finally stopped giving myself excuses for slacking. Somewhere in the spring of this year I stopped being merely motivated, and I started returning to being disciplined. It wasn't enough to simply check the boxes, I needed to actually push myself one way or another, every day. I had to push the workouts or push the eating habits to be healthier, or both, preferably daily, or at least much more often than not.
Discipline means getting up in the dark and the rain to go for a training walk because it's on the schedule. Discipline means getting up early to get in a full workout before a family dinner rather than sleeping in. Discipline means doing things you don't want to do because they're the right thing to do.
Here's the thing that blows my mind - - if you are disciplined, it doesn't matter if you're motivated or not - - you will still see the results. And the nice thing about being disciplined is that if you do happen to be motivated, it feels easier to be disciplined. But if you're disciplined it won't matter if the motivation is there or not, because you will kick your ass to the gym and watch what you eat regardless.
I am not perfect, god knows. I still struggle with emotional eating habits that I have built up over decades, so I know they're not going to break overnight or even over a year or two. I will have to fight to stay disciplined every day for the rest of my life, which is a somewhat depressing thought. And yet...that's not so depressing. I know that I can be disciplined a day at a time, which is all that it takes. Motivation was always a more slippery concept for me - - sometimes it was there, and sometimes it wasn't. In contrast, discipline is more of a habit that can be nurtured and strengthened over time. I know that for all my failings I am much more disciplined now than I was when I first started workout out, and some of those healthy habits - - working out 6 days a week, eating more vegetables - - are easier to do now that they are more ingrained.
Several of my MyFitnessPal friends have been struggling with motivation lately (as I was before I started my new job) and I have been giving a lot of thought to the distinction between motivation and discipline. I know there will be those who disagree with me, but I really do think that it's easier to be disciplined than it is to stay motivated, because you can take it one day at a time. For me, I really don't care how I get there if I see results as long as the way is healthy and sustainable. If being disciplined is the way I am going to hit my goals, then being disciplined is the way things will have to be.
This is all boldly stated by the woman who will be faced with 2 birthday cakes and a pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving dinner today, so we'll see how disciplined I really am!
A little more than a year ago, however, my motivation started to flag and my eating habits began to revert to their prior state. My unhappiness with my job led me to rationalize all sorts of destructive emotional eating, and although I was still working out 6 days a week, those workouts became less intense over time, and more pro forma. We all know that you can't outrun your fork, yes? And I was carrying a BIG fork.
Time passed and I got a wonderful new job and I finally stopped giving myself excuses for slacking. Somewhere in the spring of this year I stopped being merely motivated, and I started returning to being disciplined. It wasn't enough to simply check the boxes, I needed to actually push myself one way or another, every day. I had to push the workouts or push the eating habits to be healthier, or both, preferably daily, or at least much more often than not.
Discipline means getting up in the dark and the rain to go for a training walk because it's on the schedule. Discipline means getting up early to get in a full workout before a family dinner rather than sleeping in. Discipline means doing things you don't want to do because they're the right thing to do.
Here's the thing that blows my mind - - if you are disciplined, it doesn't matter if you're motivated or not - - you will still see the results. And the nice thing about being disciplined is that if you do happen to be motivated, it feels easier to be disciplined. But if you're disciplined it won't matter if the motivation is there or not, because you will kick your ass to the gym and watch what you eat regardless.
I am not perfect, god knows. I still struggle with emotional eating habits that I have built up over decades, so I know they're not going to break overnight or even over a year or two. I will have to fight to stay disciplined every day for the rest of my life, which is a somewhat depressing thought. And yet...that's not so depressing. I know that I can be disciplined a day at a time, which is all that it takes. Motivation was always a more slippery concept for me - - sometimes it was there, and sometimes it wasn't. In contrast, discipline is more of a habit that can be nurtured and strengthened over time. I know that for all my failings I am much more disciplined now than I was when I first started workout out, and some of those healthy habits - - working out 6 days a week, eating more vegetables - - are easier to do now that they are more ingrained.
Several of my MyFitnessPal friends have been struggling with motivation lately (as I was before I started my new job) and I have been giving a lot of thought to the distinction between motivation and discipline. I know there will be those who disagree with me, but I really do think that it's easier to be disciplined than it is to stay motivated, because you can take it one day at a time. For me, I really don't care how I get there if I see results as long as the way is healthy and sustainable. If being disciplined is the way I am going to hit my goals, then being disciplined is the way things will have to be.
This is all boldly stated by the woman who will be faced with 2 birthday cakes and a pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving dinner today, so we'll see how disciplined I really am!
Sunday, 14 September 2014
Trying to get this zen thing down
One of my biggest challenges whenever I have worked to lose weight (both back in 2000 and more recently over the past couple of years), is that I am impatient. I want to lose weight, and I want to lose it now. I am sure that this is because somewhere in the dinosaur part of the back of my mind is the idea that if I just lose the weight, I can go back to "eating normally" and stop working out.
Of course you and I both know that this thinking is based on an inherently faulty premise, namely, that one can ever really "stop" eating healthy and working out if one wants to stay healthy.
I am starting to discover that lifestyle change is just that - - a change in one's overall lifestyle. This is something that continues on and on and on, no matter what one's weight. Viewed through the lens of lifestyle change, it really doesn't matter whether I am overweight (as I currently am), or morbidly obese (as I once was), or a normal BMI (as I once was, ever so briefly) - - the lifestyle does not change.
I am slowly, over time, coming to realize (and more importantly, to accept), that being vigilant about what I eat and working out 6 days a week are just part of my life from now on. Like a recovering alcoholic, a recovering "foodaholic" like me needs to be constantly aware of the opportunities for backsliding as well as aware of coping mechanisms to deal with the addiction.
In my case, my most successful coping mechanisms have involved regular exercise and logging my food consumption in a food diary. I will likely need to keep a food diary for years no matter what my weight is, because I am still working through my tendency to overeat and binge. Emotional eating is never more than arm's length away for me, and I need to keep tracking to keep myself accountable.
Surprisingly, the exercise has been easier for me this time (compared to back in 2000). Back in 2000, I was doing 60 minutes a day with a combination of recumbent bike (boring!), NordicTrac ski machine (too challenging), and weight machine every other day (super fun). I learned that consistency is critical, and the key to consistency is finding a workout routine that you can maintain. For me now this means elliptical machine (a true godsend), free weights, and walking, along with opportunistic exercise like swimming or kayaking on occasion.
This time I am not so desperate to hit my goal weight just so that I can stop working out, because I know that working out will be a part of my life even after I reach my goal weight - - perhaps not to the same intensity, but it will still be a part of every day. I hate to admit it, but perhaps I have started to experience endorphins. In other words, working out makes me feel good. More accurately, perhaps, finishing a workout makes me feel good, but I do love that feeling of accomplishment that comes from pushing myself and getting a good sweat on.
I would not say that I have reached a Zen-like state of perfect acceptance. But I am getting there. I am focusing less on "when will I hit my goal weight?" and more on "what can I do as part of my healthy lifestyle today?" I still would love to hit a normal BMI, but I am beginning to recognize that it is the journey, and the mental changes I am making along the way, that is important.
So not quite Zen, then, but Zen-in-progress. I'll take that.
Of course you and I both know that this thinking is based on an inherently faulty premise, namely, that one can ever really "stop" eating healthy and working out if one wants to stay healthy.
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| "Nothing" |
I am slowly, over time, coming to realize (and more importantly, to accept), that being vigilant about what I eat and working out 6 days a week are just part of my life from now on. Like a recovering alcoholic, a recovering "foodaholic" like me needs to be constantly aware of the opportunities for backsliding as well as aware of coping mechanisms to deal with the addiction.
In my case, my most successful coping mechanisms have involved regular exercise and logging my food consumption in a food diary. I will likely need to keep a food diary for years no matter what my weight is, because I am still working through my tendency to overeat and binge. Emotional eating is never more than arm's length away for me, and I need to keep tracking to keep myself accountable.
Surprisingly, the exercise has been easier for me this time (compared to back in 2000). Back in 2000, I was doing 60 minutes a day with a combination of recumbent bike (boring!), NordicTrac ski machine (too challenging), and weight machine every other day (super fun). I learned that consistency is critical, and the key to consistency is finding a workout routine that you can maintain. For me now this means elliptical machine (a true godsend), free weights, and walking, along with opportunistic exercise like swimming or kayaking on occasion.
This time I am not so desperate to hit my goal weight just so that I can stop working out, because I know that working out will be a part of my life even after I reach my goal weight - - perhaps not to the same intensity, but it will still be a part of every day. I hate to admit it, but perhaps I have started to experience endorphins. In other words, working out makes me feel good. More accurately, perhaps, finishing a workout makes me feel good, but I do love that feeling of accomplishment that comes from pushing myself and getting a good sweat on.
I would not say that I have reached a Zen-like state of perfect acceptance. But I am getting there. I am focusing less on "when will I hit my goal weight?" and more on "what can I do as part of my healthy lifestyle today?" I still would love to hit a normal BMI, but I am beginning to recognize that it is the journey, and the mental changes I am making along the way, that is important.
So not quite Zen, then, but Zen-in-progress. I'll take that.
Friday, 18 April 2014
Coming back online, slowly
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| Photo by drinks machine, licensed CC-BY-NC-ND |
For the past few months my workouts have been inconsistent (especially for me), and I have been using work stress and emotional stress as excuses to Eat All The Things. Some days I couldn't even bring myself to log my food - - who can tell how many calories I was getting from a restaurant poutine, after all?
That shit stops now. Well, to be more accurate, that shit stopped this week. I took myself in hand and started back with the intensive workouts and getting back to my healthy eating routine.
I still need to lose weight, so adopting an easier workout routine that is more of a maintenance program (which I had rationalized as more sustainable than the hard workouts I had previously done) just doesn't make sense. So now I am back to 90 minutes of kicking my own ass on the weights, treadmill, and elliptical, 6 days a week. It's only day 4 of the new-and-improved world order, but it's amazing how easy it is to slip back into a healthy routine after having been so diligent at it for more than 2 years, even after a break. In a strange way my healthy lifestyle is starting to feel more comfortable to me than the lazy ass binge eating lifestyle I used to adopt. And only 2 and a half years later!
Of course my complete abandonment of healthy eating has had its sequellae - - I gained back weight, and a lot of it. Not that I look like Jabba the Hut or anything, but I have noticed that my clothing is tight, and that is just Not On. I didn't go out and get all these new clothes just to eat my way out of them after a month, no sir.
So how did I get here? Simple - I gave myself permission to indulge myself, using my stress and depression about work as excuses. Frankly, I feel much better about myself and my life when I eat well and do a hard workout, so abandoning those good habits only contributed to my feelings of depression. And once you start feeling bad because you're eating like crap, it's ever so easy to eat more to try and feel better ... except, of course, that this never works. The only thing that works is to fix the thing that isn't working and to stick to the good habits that I know make me healthier.
So I took control of the work situation, and I will have more news on that score in 2-4 weeks or so. I've still got a ton of work to do on that front, but I recently received some very good news that has given me hope for the future with respect to work, which is wonderful. I'm not out of the woods yet, but soon, hopefully.
The Nerd and I are also working at fixing up the apartment to make it more livable. We are both clearing out a lot of deadwood (I mean, do I really need to keep 30 years of old cards from strangers?) and we have donated a bunch of unwanted furniture to charity. This gives us more room to move, and more room for books, to be perfectly honest. Since "books" is kind of the decorating theme for the Palatial Estate, this works well. As the place shapes up, my mood improves even more. I hate living in disarray, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with this side project as well.
So the workouts - what's new and different and what have I learned? I learned that 46 year old knees do not take kindly to running when I have never run before, and I have had to dial back on the C25K training I was doing. I sort of wrecked my right knee and aggravated an old groin injury, and in the interests of my health I have changed up the running to merely walking on the treadmill at a reasonable pace.
The weights are effective, so I have not changed anything up there, other than to kick things up a notch with an additional set. I am currently doing 4 sets of 10 for 9 different exercises, and I will likely keep things at this level for another week or so.
The elliptical is still my best calorie burner and step driver, so I now do 90 minutes on the elliptical on non-weight days. It kicks my ass every time, but it's totally worth it. On weight days I do 10 minutes on the treadmill and 35 minutes on the elliptical for a total workout of about 90 minutes, and it feels good.
No more light workouts for the time being - - they are fine for maintenance, which will be wonderful when I reach my goal. That's a loooonnnngggg way in the future, however. For now I need to suck it up, buttercup, and focus on bringing on the sweat 6 days a week for 90 minutes each morning. So that's what I will do.
As for the food, it's back to first principles. No more illicit snacking. No more donuts, unlogged chocolate or cupcakes, no more poutine or grilled cheese, no more nachos or rice krispie square bars. What do I eat? The Nerd's delicious cooking, of course, with his balanced and nutritious meals. I am trying to keep my daily calories under 1,700-1,800, and although I don't succeed every day, it's something to shoot for. I know that this calorie target gives me enough room to eat enough delicious food to be satisfied, but not so much food that I risk going over the edge again.
I know that eating sensibly, working out to challenge myself, and avoiding snacking results in weight loss, and soon I will be back in my old weight neighbourhood. I have lost some ground, but I will be back again. I'm stubborn that way.
Sunday, 22 December 2013
Ugh - backsliding over the holidays is no fun...
So there have been some changes in the Nerd-Sassy Advocate household this fall, not all of them for the better.
First, and most frustratingly, we both have been bad little backsliders this fall, and have taken every opportunity to snack, indulge, and ease off on the workouts. Between business trips (2 x 4 days of hotel food each), family visits out of town (2 x 3 days each), holiday parties (2), festive lunches, dinners, or cocktail parties (4), both the Nerd and I have put back on some of the weight that we collectively fought so hard to lose. In my case, it's around 15 or so pounds up from my lowest recorded weight, although the scale is so horrifyingly high that I can't bear to record my weight right now. Give me a day or so back on plan and I will record the new (higher) baseline, but for now, all I can say is "yikes!". And "f---, f---, f---, f---, f---, f---" (you will have to extrapolate the missing letters).
So it turns out that working out less than usual, eating much more than usual, and eating out much, much more than usual (with the associated sodium hit) has a negative impact on weight loss. No one could have predicted that. Oh, wait, EVERYONE could have predicted that. Sheesh. Right now I am not so much ashamed as chagrined at myself and my utter lack of discipline. Dogs have more discipline than I have had this Q4.
On the positive side, it will be relatively easy to stay in a maintenance zone once I actually reach my target, as I have been (up until last week when I blew my brains out with food) cycling around the same 5 pounds over and over. Maintenance defined. So that's encouraging.
Discouraging is the fact that I will need to lose those damn 15 pounds that I have lost and lost and lost again. But really, I have only myself and my unbridled eating to blame, so I have to own it, get back on track, and move on. At Christmas. Geez - - I don't make it easy for myself, do I?
In the spirit of kicking my own ass, and as a gift to myself for Christmas, I purchased a newish treadmill. While I cannot afford one of these things at $1,500+ new, I was able to pick up this AFG 3.1 AT treadmill at half price second-hand from a nice couple that is moving to Calgary.
This is a very solid treadmill, barely used (as so many treadmills are) and just what I need to begin my C25K program. And by solid, I mean "incredibly heavy". That thing is not going anywhere now that it is in the workout room - - it is too damn heavy to move.
As an aside, I have set myself a couple of fitness objectives for Q1 2014 including being able to do 25 standard pushups in a row (I can currently only do 3 sets of 12 modified pushups), and to be able to run 5K comfortably. The treadmill will help me deliver on the running goal, which is helpful because this weekend, coincidentally, Toronto had an ice storm and it's not fit outside for people to walk, let alone run.
Yesterday the Nerd and one of our lovely neighbours wrestled the treadmill into the workout room, and the Nerd assembled it for me last night. The treadmill is Very Large, and Very Heavy, as the Nerd discovered to the dismay of one of his toes (now slightly less broken than it was this time last week - oops!).
I did my first C25K program this morning, and the treadmill worked great. It will take a while for me to learn how to run like a normal person, but the C25K app I am using was very useful in giving me the required walk-run intervals. While I am not sure that you could call the shuffling thing I was doing "running", per se, it was faster than a walk, and eventually may settle into something resembling running. My goal is just to be able to keep up with a pack of people jogging 5 km, without stopping to walk or pray for death. It's a simple objective, and one I hope to achieve. Fortunately, after a year and a half of using the elliptical, my cardio is very strong. Unfortunately, it turns out that running on a treadmill is an entirely different kind of cardio, so it is still very challenging.
I completed stage 1 of the New Rules of Lifting for Women, and definitely saw strength improvements, but I stopped stage 2 prematurely - - it is heavily lunge and reverse lunge and modified lunge focused, and my knees were starting to fall apart under the demand. Since I need my knees to be in as good condition as possible in the spring, I made the executive decision to pull the plug on that program. I will continue with weight training as I enjoy it and think it is very helpful, but I am going to focus more on upper body for now. That will help me with my pushups, too, especially since I have feeble girl arms. A T-Rex is better at pushups than I am, which is a cry for help if ever I saw one.
So yesterday was not so good a day for discpline, what with me taking (yet another) unplanned rest day, and with the Nerd and I going out for craft hot dogs for dinner. Today, however, everything is back on track. I worked out in the morning for 75 minutes (between the treadmill and the elliptical), and we have eaten sensibly today, with no snacking.
Getting my snacking behaviour back under control will take a few days of sticking to my routine, but I know I can do it. Christmas Eve-Christmas Day will be challenging, but the Nerd and I are planning a variety of healthy food options as snacks at our family party on Tuesday, and I know I can stick to portions on Christmas Day with the various families. Getting up at 3am on Christmas Day to workout will be ... challenging ... but we can do it.
The plan works when we stick to it. We know it works, as we have both seen fantastic results. At home, both the Nerd and I are pretty disciplined. It's out of the house when we go bananas. That ends this week. Sadly, I expect it will take me at least until mid-February to get back down to where I once was, but that's the consequences of undisciplined eating. That'll teach me!
So, it is once more into the breach, with the objective of being back on plan during one of the more social weeks of the year. Wish us luck!
First, and most frustratingly, we both have been bad little backsliders this fall, and have taken every opportunity to snack, indulge, and ease off on the workouts. Between business trips (2 x 4 days of hotel food each), family visits out of town (2 x 3 days each), holiday parties (2), festive lunches, dinners, or cocktail parties (4), both the Nerd and I have put back on some of the weight that we collectively fought so hard to lose. In my case, it's around 15 or so pounds up from my lowest recorded weight, although the scale is so horrifyingly high that I can't bear to record my weight right now. Give me a day or so back on plan and I will record the new (higher) baseline, but for now, all I can say is "yikes!". And "f---, f---, f---, f---, f---, f---" (you will have to extrapolate the missing letters).
So it turns out that working out less than usual, eating much more than usual, and eating out much, much more than usual (with the associated sodium hit) has a negative impact on weight loss. No one could have predicted that. Oh, wait, EVERYONE could have predicted that. Sheesh. Right now I am not so much ashamed as chagrined at myself and my utter lack of discipline. Dogs have more discipline than I have had this Q4.
On the positive side, it will be relatively easy to stay in a maintenance zone once I actually reach my target, as I have been (up until last week when I blew my brains out with food) cycling around the same 5 pounds over and over. Maintenance defined. So that's encouraging.
Discouraging is the fact that I will need to lose those damn 15 pounds that I have lost and lost and lost again. But really, I have only myself and my unbridled eating to blame, so I have to own it, get back on track, and move on. At Christmas. Geez - - I don't make it easy for myself, do I?
This is a very solid treadmill, barely used (as so many treadmills are) and just what I need to begin my C25K program. And by solid, I mean "incredibly heavy". That thing is not going anywhere now that it is in the workout room - - it is too damn heavy to move.
As an aside, I have set myself a couple of fitness objectives for Q1 2014 including being able to do 25 standard pushups in a row (I can currently only do 3 sets of 12 modified pushups), and to be able to run 5K comfortably. The treadmill will help me deliver on the running goal, which is helpful because this weekend, coincidentally, Toronto had an ice storm and it's not fit outside for people to walk, let alone run.
I did my first C25K program this morning, and the treadmill worked great. It will take a while for me to learn how to run like a normal person, but the C25K app I am using was very useful in giving me the required walk-run intervals. While I am not sure that you could call the shuffling thing I was doing "running", per se, it was faster than a walk, and eventually may settle into something resembling running. My goal is just to be able to keep up with a pack of people jogging 5 km, without stopping to walk or pray for death. It's a simple objective, and one I hope to achieve. Fortunately, after a year and a half of using the elliptical, my cardio is very strong. Unfortunately, it turns out that running on a treadmill is an entirely different kind of cardio, so it is still very challenging.
So yesterday was not so good a day for discpline, what with me taking (yet another) unplanned rest day, and with the Nerd and I going out for craft hot dogs for dinner. Today, however, everything is back on track. I worked out in the morning for 75 minutes (between the treadmill and the elliptical), and we have eaten sensibly today, with no snacking.
Getting my snacking behaviour back under control will take a few days of sticking to my routine, but I know I can do it. Christmas Eve-Christmas Day will be challenging, but the Nerd and I are planning a variety of healthy food options as snacks at our family party on Tuesday, and I know I can stick to portions on Christmas Day with the various families. Getting up at 3am on Christmas Day to workout will be ... challenging ... but we can do it.
The plan works when we stick to it. We know it works, as we have both seen fantastic results. At home, both the Nerd and I are pretty disciplined. It's out of the house when we go bananas. That ends this week. Sadly, I expect it will take me at least until mid-February to get back down to where I once was, but that's the consequences of undisciplined eating. That'll teach me!
So, it is once more into the breach, with the objective of being back on plan during one of the more social weeks of the year. Wish us luck!
Thursday, 16 May 2013
When the going gets tough...
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| Photo courtesy jules:stonesoup, licenced CC BY SA |
I have to admit that this has been a difficult week for me. I have been snacking. A lot. And not in a reasonable way, with healthy almonds or apples - - this week I have been snacking on chocolate. Lots of it.
I keep a candy machine full of peanut butter M&Ms on my desk, and on special chocolate occasions like Easter, Valentine's Day or Halloween I also put out a candy dish with special chocolates and candy. Mini eggs at Easter, mini chocolate bars at Halloween, chocolate caramel hearts at Valentine's day - - the people in my office love 'em.
I am generally a woman of stone when it comes to eating the chocolates. I typically just don't do it. I know that chocolate is one of my trigger foods, so I tend not to eat it, because if I eat one piece, I want to go back and eat 10 more pieces. The peanut butter M&Ms do not tempt me at all - - they never have - - but I have to be on my guard with the other chocolates.
In the last few weeks I have been sorely tempted by the candy dish, to the point where I finally crossed the line and started to eat the sweets myself. Most days I would be diligent and track what I ate, but a couple of days I went completely and utterly off the reservation and ate chocolate after chocolate after chocolate. Mini peanut butter cups? Sure thing. Hershey's Kisses? Absolutely. Mini Peppermint Patties? Bring 'em on. And on. And on. After a few minutes it was easy to lose track of how many little chocolates I had actually eaten. Enough to have lost count, which is too many, when you think about it.
Once I began the rationalization process involved with having the first little chocolate (so tiny, so few calories, I'm still way under on my calories, I worked out today), eating the next 10 or 15 chocolates was easy. Except for looking at myself and owning up to what I just did - - that was difficult.
I knew that this week I was in danger of sliding completely off the rails. So I did what I should have done last week, and went back to basics.
Yesterday I tried to make it through just one day without illicit snacking. No little chocolates. No mini caramels. No shredded cheese. No bread with margarine. Just three balanced nutritious meals with proper sensible snacks. If I could make it through one day, I thought, I would be able to begin taking back control over my eating.
I made it. Every time I felt tempted to pop a chocolate into my mouth, I took a new piece of gum, or a took a sip of water. Anything to deal with the oral fixation I have been feeding with sweets. And when I got home, I went straight to bed and didn't hang out in the kitchen, looking for snacking ideas.
This morning I felt great. Full of energy for my weights + elliptical day, and a million pounds lighter - - mentally, at least. I had beaten down my impulsive eating and had stuck to my plan, for one day at least. But that one day was a complete win, and I feel great for having that win under my belt. It showed me that I could do it - - I could be in control again.
Today is a new day, of course, and another day to try and hit the plan. Having mastered my impulsive eating once, though, now I know that if I take it just a day at a time and if I keep my focus on the fundamentals I can push past this and return to my healthy eating habits. Today already feels easier than yesterday - - it is requiring less of a physical act of will to resist the siren call of the chocolates.
Tomorrow when the chocolates run out the jar will go away until Back to School season. This little habit is too expensive - - in many ways. Aside from the money I spend subsidizing my co-workers' snacking habits (which is not insignificant - - these guys can put 'em away!), I have fought too hard to develop healthy eating habits to piss them all away on a handful of candy now. I work too hard every day, sweating it out on that damn elliptical, to give it up now with stupid mindless emotional eating.
I am better than this. I can be better than this. One day at a time.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
Nutrition Action Healthletter
For those of you who are not familiar with the magazine, it is published monthly by the Centre for Science in the Public Interest ("CSPI"). CSPI presents itself as the voice of the public on nutrition, food safety, health and other issues. CSPI has long sought to educate the public, advocate government policies that are consistent with scientific evidence on health and environmental issues, and counter industry’s powerful influence on public opinion and public policies.
Each month the magazine contains interesting articles about nutrition, the benefits of exercise, and food safety. They also regularly have a recipe page, with healthy and delicious recipes that fit perfectly into a calorie-reduced or sodium-reduced diet. My favourite part of the magazine, however, is the "Food Porn" on the back cover.
Presented as a counterpoint to a healthy food choice, the Food Porn either consists of something I have previously consumed (ahem), or something that, in my unguarded moments, I look at and think to myself "wow, that looks delicious". A quick review of Food Porn from recent issues includes food such as President's Choice Dine-In Tonight Beef Meat Lasagne, Boston Pizza's Chocolate Explosion, Quiznos' Chicken Carbonara Sub, Swiss Chalet's Rotisserie Chicken Quesadilla, and East Side Mario's Stuffed Mushroom Caps. Inevitably these mouthwatering food selections are high in calories, high in saturated fats, and, depending on whether they are sweet or savoury, high in sugar or sodium to boot.
When the Matriarch first got me the subscription to this magazine, I never exercised and I was eating All The Bad Things (and lots of 'em). I found CSPI's constant harping about saturated fat to be tedious and more than a bit preachy, and the Food Porn section seemed designed to take all the pleasure out of my most indulgent guilty pleasures. I never read the magazines, and let the subscription lapse.
Fast forward a few years to this month. I now live in a world with daily exercise, and I actually pay attention to things like saturated fat and sodium now. I still would love to sit down at a meal made up entirely of Food Porn (my emotional eating is never too far under the surface, after all), but now my brain understands why that would set me back. Frankly now, I would begrudge the calories. I have a strictly "look but don't touch" approach to the Food Porn now.
Recently, the Matriarch mentioned an article in the magazine, and when I expressed an interest, she brought me all her back issues on hand. The Nerd and I now have a stack of Nutrition Action Healthletters going back to 2008, full of information and recipes to be explored. The first weekend we had the magazines the Nerd came to bed and said "this will sound strange, but I really want to try some of these salads from the magazine". And do you know what? They were delicious.
So now we're diving into the big stack of magazines and catching up on years of missed articles. I wasn't ready to internalize any of the information in the magazines when I first got my subscription, but I am now, and I am enjoying the magazines more than I expected. They are a light read - - none of them are more than 20 pages or so, but they're packed with useful information.
Thankfully, the Matriarch has been able to add the "I told you so" with respect to the Nutrition Action Healthletter to her repertoire, to accompany her "I told you so" with respect to the elliptical machine. It gives her such pleasure.
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