Food Log, Not Food Fight

Something I need to do better on my journey back to fitness, is to modify my current eating habits.  As evidenced by the recent relatively slow progress in my weight loss (8 pounds in 21 weeks), my current eating habits are close to supporting my current weight.  Since I’m generally meeting my exercise goals and am close on my sleep goal, I’ll  have to cut calories back more in order to continue shedding pounds and then to maintain my lighter body weight.

I feel like I generally eat very well -mostly organic, mostly grass-fed meat, no dairy, no gluten, little processed food.  I try to be aware of portion size, fat intake, and meat intake.  I eat beans and legumes often, but not quite daily.  In general, grains are not a big portion of my diet.  I also eat lots of fruits and veggies each day -usually 3-4 servings of fruit per day and 8 or more servings of veggies.  So I’ve been wondering where I’m going wrong right now with my eating habits.  Despite eating too much chocolate most days, it sure seems like I’ve eaten worse and weighed less.  I used to eat french fries and ice cream several times a week.  Well, in my younger days, that is.  It’s hard to know how my age, heredity, and hypothyroidism are currently impacting my metabolism.  Regardless of the reason, the answer is undoubtedly to cut calories. 

Since my only real rules on this fitness journey are sustainability and no dieting, a food log feels like the logical answer.  Food is my friend, my fuel, not my enemy to fight.  I want to keep it that way.  Tracking what I eat daily will help me “get real” with what I am putting into my body.  It feels like a little bit of a step back in terms of my commitment to voluntary simplicity but, on the other hand, a healthy and sustained body weight may create other forms of simplicity like giving up my “fat clothes” for good.    

Next time…Breaking The Wednesday Rut

How I did today:
1. Sleep – 7.25 hours last night
2. Exercise – 60 minutes of Jazzercise, 50 minutes of mostly brisk walking
3. Strength training – included in Jazzercise
4. Yoga – not today
5. Meditation – 10 minutes before bed
6. Food – 3 fruits, a pile of veggies, 1 serving of chocolate

Regularity Fosters Accountability Fosters Results

Well, it’s been a week again since I posted so this title is tickling my funny bone.  When I thought of this topic, it was because I’ve noticed that when I’m posting to this blog regularly, I take better care of myself.  (Maybe I’ll have to change the title to 40 pounds in 40 years!)  I’m more attentive to the general care of my body.  I’m more attentive to the food that enters my mouth.  I’m more attentive to getting in my intended hours of sleep, exercise, and meditation. 

So my latest readjustment to my goals is to get back to daily blog posts.  Remembering that I don’t need to be perfect, 6 out of 7 days is what I’m committing to do.

Next time…Food Log, Not Food Fight

Here are my current stats:
Starting weight: 164 lbs (Sept. 2009)
Current weight: 156 lbs
Goal weight: 143
End of Week: #21
Weight loss this week: re-lost 2 lbs lost 2 weeks ago…lol
Total weight loss to date: 8 lbs

How I did today:
1. Sleep – 7.75 hours last night
2. Exercise – 60 minutes of Jazzercise, 20 minutes brisk walking
3. Strength training – included in Jazzercise
4. Yoga – nope
5. Meditation – 10 minutes before bed
6. Food – 3 fruits, a pile of veggies, 2 servings of chocolate

How I did during week #21:
1. Sleep – average of 8.21 hours (goal is average 8.5 hours)
2. Exercise – 8 hours (goal is now 9)
3. Strength training – 4x w/Jazzercise (goal is 3 times per week)
4. Yoga – 0 (goal is twice a week)
5. Meditation – 10 minutes (goal is 10 minutes a day)
6. Food – back to more veggies, still too many treats

Powerful Thinking

I believe very strongly that thoughts and thinking are powerful creators of my reality.  I don’t believe that I can, in all cases, just think something and that it will come true.  (This is some people’s version of The Law of Attraction.)  It would be more accurate to say that I believe that my thoughts create my feelings which create my actions or sometimes inactions. 

Monitoring my thoughts is very important to improving my sense well-being.  It’s something that I must keep reminding myself to do, too, because when I’m not conscious about my thinking, my ego likes to imagine lots of terrible, stressful, negative ideas.  Before I know it, I find myself believing these stories and acting as if they are true.  That’s not usually helpful.

When I can remember, I try to just notice these thoughts, without judgment and say “thinking” to my Self, my ego.  This is a tool that I learned from studying Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction as  passed down to my teacher from Jon Kabat-Zinn.   It works remarkable well.  Just making the observation “thinking” seems to stop my ego negativity train in its tracks – gently and yet firmly.

So this post is really a note to self, “Choose your thoughts wisely, Dear One.  This can change your life.”

Next time…Regularity Fosters Accountability Fosters Results

Here are my current stats:
Starting weight: 164 lbs 
Current weight:  158 lbs
Goal weight: 144
End of Week:  #20
Weight loss this week:  regained 2 lbs lost last week (They weren’t lost, I found them!)
Total weight loss to date:  6 lbs

How I did today:
1.  Sleep -  7.5 hours last night
2.  Exercise - 60 minutes of Jazzercise, 60 minutes slower walking
3.  Strength training - included in Jazzercise
4.  Yoga – nope
5.  Meditation – 10 minutes before bed
6.  Food – 2 fruits, a pile of veggies, a little more than a serving of chocolate

How I did during week #20:
1.  Sleep – average of 8.5 hours (goal is average 8.5 hours) - YAY!  I finally made this goal
2.  Exercise - 9.5 hours (goal is now 9) 
3.  Strength training – 3x w/Jazzercise (goal is 3 times per week) 
4.  Yoga – 0 (goal is twice a week)
5.  Meditation – 70 minutes (goal is 10 minutes a day)
6.  Food – LOTS of grains this week -toast, rice, cake, brownies, ugh!  (2 birthday celebrations, 2 pounds back)

Thinking Myself Fit And Slender

Three pounds in two weeks!  What am I doing differently?  Overall, not much.  My exercise and eating habits are about the same as the last 18 weeks.  I’ve even lowered my exercise goal recently.  Though I started out with the goal of something like 5 hours a week, I increased that to 10.5 hours a week so as to get in the 90 minutes a day that many experts say is ideally the minimum.  Within the last few weeks, I decided that a day off is a good idea and is more sustainable.  So I lowered my goal to 9 hours a week.  (See my previous post, “The Virtue of A Day Off”.)

That brings me to the second small change I’ve recently made – I have generally stopped asking myself to accomplish so much in a day.  My expectations of myself have been really off the charts.  Only 8 months into a new marriage, a blended family with teens, and a new-to-us-home, there is an amazing list of “things to take care of”.  I find myself feeling incredibly stressed about it at times.  A few weeks ago, I began the process of mapping out my time, day by day, hour by hour.  After must-dos like sleep, shower, eat, etc. and the bare minimum of parenting and household chores, there really are precious few hours for the optional things like reading, socializing, or anything.   That was a great reality check for me and, while it’s still a work in progress, I’m taking steps to make my life smaller, simpler, and more manageable again.  I have no doubt that it will still feel like a lot to manage but the simple shift of expecting myself to accomplish less in the day reduces the stress that I feel.  (Maybe a topic to expound upon another time.)

Thirdly, and what I really had in mind to write about, is visualization.  You’ve probably heard that great athletes spend time imagining themselves making the perfect shot, swing, or stride.  Visualization works!  Even if it’s only in our mind’s eye, seeing ourselves accomplish anything helps make it so.  The main idea is that our brain largely doesn’t know the difference between something that we imagine in great detail, movies where all that our eyes take in is the result of someone else’s imagination, or a real experience.  It reacts and our bodies react as if the event were true.  Don’t believe me?  Watch a scary movie sometime and notice how tense your body feels.  Visualization is a big part of the magic behind The Law of Attraction, too.

What have I been visualizing?  Myself fit and slender.   I remember what it felt like when I was at lower weights, when I was more fit, when I felt skinny.  I see my body in that state, see my scale registering a specific number, and experience the thrill of accomplishment and feeling great.  I try to do this 3 times a day but succeed an average of twice – once before I get out of bed and once when I go to bed.  Taking advantage of the powerful hypnopompic and hypnogogic states makes my visualizations even more powerful, I believe, as that’s a time when my conscious mind is less likely to step in with the thought “but you’re not really there yet”.  In my mind, all things are possible.

Next…Powerful Thinking

Here are my current stats:
Starting weight: 164 lbs 
Current weight:  156 lbs
Goal weight: 145
End of Week:  #19
Weight loss this week:  shed 2 lbs 
Total weight loss to date:  8 lbs

How I did today:
1.  Sleep -  8.5 hours last night
2.  Exercise - 15 minutes brisk walking
3.  Strength training - none
4.  Yoga – nope
5.  Meditation – 10 minutes before bed
6.  Food – 4 fruits, a pile of veggies, some tofu and beans, 2 servings of chocolate (can you say PMS?)

How I did during week #19:
1.  Sleep – average of 7.64 hours (goal is average 8.5 hours) 
2.  Exercise - 9 hours (goal is now 9) 
3.  Strength training – 5x w/Jazzercise (goal is 3 times per week) 
4.  Yoga – 0 (goal is twice a week)
5.  Meditation – 20 minutes (goal is 10 minutes a day)
6.  Food – better apparently, started moving toward soup or salad for dinner

The Virtue of A Day Off

How ironic is it that writing a post about this topic (the virtue of a day off) would be 10 days after my last post?  (laughing…The Gods love to mess with me!)

Well, that’s a good start to thinking about taking a day off -sometimes breaking a routine, even for a day, results in not one but several days off.  Beware this happening to you unless you’re taking a day off from something that’s self-destructive.  I’m in a fairly major life reorganization period and blogging hasn’t been at the top of my list, though it has been top of mind. 

Anyway, I think that there is wisdom in taking a day off and I try to do this is several ways:  a day off from eating healthy now and then, a day off from traveling outside of my home, a day off from doing much of anything productive, a day off from my family, and now, a day off from exercise.  Certainly days off from anything happen with or without our intention and planning.  Those don’t tend to feel as easy for me.  Instead of feeling like it was a welcome break or an indulgence, I often feel frustrated that I didn’t do something that I wanted to or intended to.  For me, that’s much less satisfactory that intentionally playing hooky.

In terms of my quest for fitness, taking a meal or a day off from healthy eating is just a given.  What recently occurred to me though is that taking a day off from exercise is probably a good idea, too.  With the ambitious, self-imposed goal of 90 minutes a day of exercise, I’ve sometimes felt frustrated in my ability to live up to that.  Days pop up where a shoe horn wouldn’t fit that much, or sometimes any, exercise into my day.  I do have a daily schedule now that has helped reduce the number of times that happens.  And this strategy of making appointments with myself for activities like sleep, exercise, healthy meals, yoga, and meditation has helped me be more regular in these forms of self-care.

I decided though that taking a day off from exercise is a good idea, especially during the deep months of winter.  In Rochester, the cold, snow, and frequently gray skies invite introspection and going slow.  Taking the day off from anything vigorous feels like I’m honoring the season and inviting balance or harmony into my life.  It also creates a space for the full catastrophe of life to happen as it will and for me to be accepting of that, not frustrated.  Should life be calm and my energy high, 7 days straight of exercise will feel like a bonus!

Next time…Thinking myself fit and slender.

Here are my current stats:
Starting weight: 164 lbs 
Current weight:  158 lbs
Goal weight: 146
End of Week:  #18
Weight loss this week:  shed 1 lb 
Total weight loss to date:  6 lbs

How I did today:
1.  Sleep -  8 hours last night
2.  Exercise - 60 minutes Jazzercise, 45 minutes brisk walking
3.  Strength training - part of Jazzercise
4.  Yoga – nope
5.  Meditation – 10 minutes before bed
6.  Food – 3 fruits, a pile of carrots along with other veggies, 2 servings of chocolate (can you say PMS?)

How I did during week #18:
1.  Sleep – average of 7.8 hours (goal is average 8.5 hours) 
2.  Exercise - 7.25 hours (goal is now 9) 
3.  Strength training – 4x w/Jazzercise plus 2x more (goal is 3 times per week) 
4.  Yoga – 0 (goal is twice a week)
5.  Meditation – 70 minutes (goal is 10 minutes a day)
6.  Food – getting back on track

No Resolutions and No Fads For Me

Happy New (calendar) Year!  It may be a new decade but some things, like the onslaught of January commercials for diets, weight loss products, and gyms, are not new.  I watched a little TV over the holidays and chuckled to see that there is a woman who lost a bunch of weight eating at her favorite taco chain, just like the man who became famous for losing many pounds eating submarine sandwhiches 3 times a day.  Good for both of them, certainly, but how many of you resolve every January 1st that this is the year you’ll lose 10 pounds or get in shape?  I also see that the phrase “diet tips” in one of the top searches on Dogpile today.

Do resolutions work or not?  While doing a little research for this post, I found that the experts do not agree.  I found articles on both sides in the same publication (why they don’t stick and how they can work).  If you’ve made some, I hope that you will do the work to make them stick.  And, make resolutions that you control.  In other words, don’t resolve to lose 10 pounds; do resolve to exercise vigorously 5-6 hours each week or to eat 4 pieces of fruit a day.

For me, fall is the time to start over, not January 1st.  I do feel a sense of “now that the holidays are over I can get back to normal life stuff” but not a starting over feeling.  Just a readjustment feeling.

Also, by having started my lifestyle changes in the fall, I’m feeling pretty solid now about the changes I’ve made that continue to be solidly in place – namely almost daily, vigorous exercise, and eating more fruits and veggies.  I also have a start on incorporating yoga, mindfulness and meditation, and more sleep into my life.  Those pieces aren’t firmly in place but they’re coming.  I recently started marking all of my daily activities on my calendar.  That should help me stay realistic about what I can fit into a day and to make sure that the important stuff, the taking care of me stuff, actually gets my attention each day.

So no resolutions and no fads for me.  I’m working on a sustainable and healthy lifestyle.

Next…the virtue of a day off.

Here are my current stats:
Starting weight: 164 lbs 
Current weight:  159 lbs
Goal weight: 147
End of Week:  #17
Weight loss this week:  gained 1 lb 
Total weight loss to date:  5 lbs

How I did today:
1.  Sleep -  8.5 hours last night
2.  Exercise - 60 minutes Jazzercise, 30 minutes hiking
3.  Strength training - part of Jazzercise
4.  Yoga – nope
5.  Meditation – 25 minutes before bed
6.  Food – 3 fruits, a pile of kale along with other veggies, 1 serving of chocolate

How I did during week #17:
1.  Sleep – average of 7.7 hours (goal is average 8.5 hours) 
2.  Exercise - 6.25 hours (goal is now 10.5) 
3.  Strength training – 4x w/Jazzercise (goal is 3 times per week) 
4.  Yoga – 0 (goal is twice a week)
5.  Meditation – 60 minutes (goal is 10 minutes a day)
6.  Food – more holiday celebrations, ugh!

The Other Eating Habit That Has To Change

I don’t know if I’m quite up for it.  It is the middle of winter afterall.  And I live in the Northeast, where winter sun is scarce unless it’s nose-numbing cold.  There are no warm breezes, no stretches of green, and no water warm enough to wade in.  The pleasures of winter here are mostly those had indoors, with friends and family (okay, friends) – soup, slippers, flannel jammies, and chocolate!

Chocolate.  Hot chocolate, dark chocolate, chocolate brownies, chocolate chips, chocolate anything.  Eating chocolate is a source of pleasure – pleasure for my mouth when I’m savoring it’s dark, rich creaminess and pleasure for my brain and body when all of those feel good chemicals start coursing through my veins.  Woo hoo!

I am addicted.  And that needs to change.  I suspect that it won’t be easy.  Chocolate is a pretty powerful drug.  In The Pleasure Instinct, Gene Wallenstein writes:  “It is easy to see why the depressed and stressed among us self-medicate with chocolate.  It quenches the pleasure instinct by activating three key brain transmitter systems that are involved in reward…”  Not one system, but three.  I wonder if I stand a chance?!

I won’t be attempting to quit entirely, as I don’t think it’s really sustainable  or desireable to make any food forbidden.  But with 150 out of 220 calories coming from fat and 10 grams of saturated fat in a serving (10 pieces), it’s time to cut down.  Many days, I eat not one, but two servings.  Yikes!  16 servings total about 3500 calories or one pound of body weight.  Quitting cold turkey could mean losing almost a pound a week just from this one change.  Cutting back to not more than one serving could mean a half a pound of weight loss per week. 

In addition to the extra weight, all of that saturated fat isn’t doing my body any good either.  Heart disease, here I come!

So this eating habit needs to change, too.  1.  Slow down when eating.  2.  Cut down (on chocolate).  I’m sure there is at least a third habit that could use cleaning up but, those two give me plenty to do for now.

How I did today:
1.  Sleep -  7 hours last night
2.  Exercise - 60 minutes Jazzercise, 30 minutes cross-country skiing, 15 minutes brisk walk
3.  Strength training - part of Jazzercise
4.  Yoga – not today
5.  Meditation – 10 minutes this morning
6.  Food – 2 fruits, holiday leftovers (twice), and a little more than one serving of chocolate

What’s The Rush?

What’s the rush?  It’s a question that I’ve asked myself a couple of times in the last week.

The first time was when we had our household’s holiday feast,  a few days ago.  I spent hours shopping, cooking, and cleaning up.  Something like most of 6 hours in the kitchen making turkey, potatoes, stuffing, squash, gravy, corn bread, punch, and a few other foods.  When it was dinner time, I didn’t even really feel very hungry honestly.  Still, I was determined to eat.  I’d spent all day cooking and I was going to enjoy it!  (Silly me.)

Besides ignoring my relative lack of hunger, I also noticed myself eating quickly.  I even noticed the thought, “If I hurry up, I can have seconds before I notice that I’m full.  I don’t eat most of these foods very often and I really want to enjoy them.”  It’s embarassing to admit those thoughts but I share them in case they resonate with you.  I was so invested in enjoying my efforts and the holiday foods themselves that I ate more than my body needed.  Ugh!  That doesn’t help change my body now, does it?

The second time that I noticed the feeling and thought of “If I eat quickly, I can have seconds without knowing that I’m full” was yesterday.  I had made masoor dahl. Yum!  I really enjoy eating this food and…well, I already told you.

Where do these thoughts come from, I wonder?  Is there some childhood wounding around food?  Did I starve in a past life or never eat pleasureable foods?  I don’t yet know the answer to these questions but I have been sitting with them and will continue to do so until an answer comes.

Luckily, these thoughts have arisen from my ego in my consciousness, my awareness.  Shining the light on them has already made them less powerful.  Even though I do not know their source, I now see their falseness, their trap.  Eating more than I need will never serve my body; never help me be fit and healthy.  And I am blessed to (currently) have a life where food is abundant.  Next time the thought comes, I will greet it differently.  “Yes,” I will say to it.  “I could eat quickly and have seconds.  However, that does not serve me.  Instead, I will enjoy leftovers or eating it another day.”

Or, I could always have a tiny serving and then still have seconds!  (Never taking my thoughts or myself too seriously.)

Next time…The other eating habit that has to change!

How I did today:
1.  Sleep -  7.5 hours last night
2.  Exercise - 60 minutes Jazzercise, 30 minutes brisk walk
3.  Strength training - part of Jazzercise
4.  Yoga – not today
5.  Meditation – 10 minutes before bed
6.  Food – 3 fruits, lots of veggies and legumes, a little more than one serving of chocolate

How Great Would That Feel?

When I look at my goal weight for this point in my program (148 lbs, not my present 158), all I can think is “How great would that feel?!”  I can remember how light I felt previously when at that weight.  At this point, I don’t know how I would catch up to my goal but I’m not changing it.  It’s okay.  As I’ve written before, fitness is a far more important goal than any number on the scale.  And, I’m not afraid of “failure.”  Posting that I’m behind in my goal makes me human and real.  To persist, I believe, is inspiring.

I am excited to have lost several inches in the last four months.  My clothes fit better and I see a difference when I look in the mirror.  (Check out my “About” page to see if you can see a difference from my monthly photos.)  It pleases me and increases my sense of well-being.  (Whether it “should” or not is another topic.  Check out this interesting book:  “A Waist Is A Terrible Thing To Mind“)

Another way that the changes I’m experiencing please me is that I am experiencing a higher level of fitness.  Hiking up Indian Hill has gotten much easier for me.  I can feel the difference between now and when I first started in September -less breathlessness, greater ease up that first, steep incline.  The last few days, I’ve started to fantasize about hiking bigger mountains.  And I feel a thrill of excitement rush through my body when I think about doing that.  That tells me it’s the right thing for me to do.  I think I’ll be spending even more time in the Adirondacks next summer.

Still, it would feel really great to experience the lightness of my body at 148, instead of 158.  I just picked up 2-5 pound dumbbells to see what 10 pounds feels like.  Boy would that additional weight loss take a load off my joints.  That inspires me to do better with eating.  And I’ve been noticing something about my eating habits that needs to change (okay, two somethings but one at a time!).

Next…What’s The Rush?

Here are my current stats (the original ones show as a strikethrough):
Starting weight: 164 lbs 
Current weight:  158 lbs
Goal weight: 148
End of Week:  #16
Weight loss this week:  1 lb (had gained one back last week)
Total weight loss to date:  6 lbs

Measurements:  (6.5 total inches shed so far)
bust 41.25″ 41.5″ (are the exercises uplifting?)
waist 37.5″ 36″
belly 40″  39.25″
hips 41.75″ 40.25″
right thigh 26.5″ 25″

How I did today:
1.  Sleep -  8 hours last night
2.  Exercise - 60 minutes Jazzercise, 20 minutes shoveling snow
3.  Strength training - part of Jazzercise
4.  Yoga – nope
5.  Meditation – 10 minutes before bed
6.  Food – 3 fruits, lots of veggies and legumes, 2 servings of chocolate

How I did during week #16:
1.  Sleep – average of 7.8 hours (goal is average 8.5 hours) 
2.  Exercise - 8.5 hours (goal is now 10.5) 
3.  Strength training – 3x w/Jazzercise (goal is 3 times per week) 
4.  Yoga – 0 (goal is twice a week)
5.  Meditation – 0 minutes (goal is 10 minutes a day)
6.  Food – 3 holiday celebrations

Really?

No matter what the results were, I believed I would be surprised when I stepped onto the scale this morning.  I was.  Well, a little.  I weighed in at 159 this morning, not my previous 158.  It is a little surprising that only 2 days of feasting can add up that fast.

However, it’s likely not just the feasting that put another pound back on my body.  In reviewing my weekly totals, I see that my sleep was really inadequate.  For the week, I am 9.5 hours short.  That’s a whole night’s worth of sleep.  As I’ve written before, sleep deprivation = equals extra pounds, even with the same number of calories taken in. 

Also, I was about 4 hours short of my exercise goal.  That’s at least 1200-1600 calories not burned, or nearly half a pound.

So:  feasting + sleep deprivation + not meeting exercise goal = gaining a pound.  Makes sense even if it doesn’t make me happy.

Now that my holiday celebrations are over, the extra errands of shopping and wrapping and extra activities are behind me for another year, I can get refocused and get back to heading toward a healthier, fitter, thinner me.

A real woman having a real journey though sometimes the journey is two steps forward and one step back.  This woman is persisting.

Next…How Great Would That Feel?!

Here are my current stats (the original ones show as a strikethrough):
Weight 164 lbs  159 lbs (goal for this week is 149)

How I did today:
1.  Sleep -  8.25 hours last night
2.  Exercise - 30 minute brisk walk
3.  Strength training - 0
4.  Yoga – nope
5.  Meditation – 0
6.  Food – less chocolate (yay!) but chicken wings (and broccoli) for lunch

How I did during week #15:
1.  Sleep – average of 7.14 hours (goal is average 8.5 hours) 
2.  Exercise - 6.75 hours (goal is now 10.5) 
3.  Strength training – 4x w/Jazzercise (goal is 3 times per week) 
4.  Yoga – 0 (goal is twice a week)
5.  Meditation – 0 minutes (goal is 10 minutes a day)
6.  Food – a real roller coaster, most of a day of fasting, two holidays