A New Way of Eating

Saturday before last, you may recall, and if you follow me on Facebook you saw it there as well, that I had a bit of a meltdown about my weight.  Last week and the week before I went up 1 lb and 1.2 lbs.  I did the math and determined that it was more fat gain than it was muscle gain and I flipped.  Straight flipped, I tell ya!  I posted in one of the weight loss groups I’m a member of on Facebook and this guy, he meant well, got all drill sergeanty on me and told me to stop making excuses and how dare I question whether I should keep going and so on.  In my already upset state, I took this in a way he did not mean and here is where the actual meltdown occurred.  I was crying hysterically and shaking.  I messaged the leader of the group and thank goodness she was able to message me back and talk to me.  She helped me calm down and helped me devise a new plan of action.

 

She had me do this “dent test” (for lack of a better term) where you push your thumb into the muscle along the front of your shin.  Then you feel to see if there’s a dent.  If there’s a dent, then you’re retaining excess water which also may mean that you are ingesting too much sodium.  Well, I had a dent.  I already use super minimal salt in my food, so I don’t think that’s somewhere I can change anything.  I think if anything, I’m just over-hydrating.  I did drink a LOT of water last week.  Also, on Saturday I was still fairly sore from my tabata workout and when you’re sore, you’re also retaining water.

 

Then, she went over what I’m eating with me and then told me what she eats on a daily basis.  She only eats about 1000 calories (that’s too low for me to eat on a regular basis, but it works fine for her).  I’ve been eating at least 1750 calories a day...more if I’ve exercised. 

 

Here’s the breakdown on what I decided to do with my daily food intake:

• breakfast: 1.5 cups unsweetened original almond milk + 1 scoop protein powder, 3 eggs w/sriracha & a little sea salt

• lunch: (last week & this week, anyway) 13 oz seasoned and broiled tilapia w/corn tortillas and mild salsa

• snack: 0% fat plain Greek yogurt w/1 cup frozen berries (thawed, of course)

• dinner: 1-2 apples, depending on how hungry I am (but this week I never ate more than 1)

Per the FitBit calorie counter, that’s approximately 1280-1350 calories.  Also, I will no longer be eating my exercise calories.  Those are now off limits.  At least while I’m in the losing weight stage.  Things will probably change once I get to my goal and then start maintaining. But I will worry about that when that time comes.

 

Well, here’s my recap of how I did this week:

• Saturday and Sunday: basically cheat days as I already had plans with friends and food well before the weekend happened.

• Monday: officially started my new food action plan.  I got up early and ran.  Was done running by 8am.  Chilled at my desk for about an hour, then made my protein shake and slowly sipped on that for about half an hour.  That kept me feeling satisfied until about 11 when my stomach started growling so I fed it my 3 eggs w/sriracha & sea salt.  The rest of the day went great.  I never really ever felt hungry, just felt like it was time to eat kind of mild feeling.  I did break my lunch into 2 parts because it was so big and that worked out great for me.  When I got home, I was a little hungry.  I ate my apple and was fine!

• Tuesday: still feeling great on this new plan.  It’s after a few days before I really discover how it’s working for me, though.  I had my therapy appointment at 11 this day, so I had my 3 eggs right before I left the house for my appointment and put my protein shake in a small cooler-type lunch bag with an ice pack and drank that right before going in to work.  This day went fantastic with the food and not feeling overly hungry at any point during the day.

• Wednesday: I still have loads of energy.  I wish I had tried this sooner.  Seriously.  I feel beyond great!  I’m still not overly hungry.  I had a little bit of grumbles in my tummy when I went to bed this night, but nothing bad.  I got done with my workout later in the morning than I meant to so I had my protein shake immediately post-workout and then took my shower and pretty much then immediately cooked and ate my eggs…then got ready for work.

• Thursday: still feeling GREAT!  It is amazing how great I’m feeling!  I’m literally next to never hungry.  I love this!

• Friday: I had to plan a little bit extra for this day as I worked a 16 hour double shift.  Basically, what I did to make it through 16 hours of work was take a bunch of apples with me to eat during the night shift.  I also did my best to delay the eating of my other meals during the day.  For starters, after my kettlebell workout, I had my eggs, but waited until I got to work to have my protein shake, which let me be hungry later when it came to it being time for my lunch and then later again for my yogurt and fruit and then I just ate apples on the night shift.  What happened was, I didn’t get hungry for my lunch (the fish tacos) until after 8pm.  Then I wasn’t able to eat the whole thing but didn’t finish it until 11pm.  I didn’t eat any of the extra apples I had allotted myself to eat and therefore took them off my MyFitnessPal food log.

• Saturday: yesterday was my first weekend day on this new plan.  I had also been awake for well over 24 hours.  I started my daily food intake over at 3am, meaning anything I ate after 3am was no longer Friday's food but was now Saturday's food.  I didn't eat anything from 3-6am while I was finishing up working overtime.  I didn't take anything in until after a 5K run I did when I got home from work.  I had my protein shake.  A few hours later, I had 2 eggs (because I only had 2 left in the fridge).  A couple hours later, I had an apple, then I laid down for what was SUPPOSED to be a 6 hour sleep but ended up being a 3 hour nap when I woke up wide awake.  I was meeting a friend for dinner so I scoped out the menu at Jason's Deli ahead of time and decided I would get the Nutty Mixed Up Salad with an extra chicken breast.  Dude, that thing was HUGE.  I also stayed completely within my calories for the day and didn't even remotely touch my exercise calories.  GOAL MET!  And I felt great!

 

I’m going to continue eating like this.  It works for me.  So I see no reason NOT to continue with it.  I feel satisfied at all times, never wanting, no urges to binge or boredom eat.  But, I’ve had eating plans before that started off the same way with how I was feeling and then after a month or so I was falling off the wagon.  So, I’m not going to get cocky about it.  I’m just going to take it one week, one day at a time and keep reevaluating how I’m feeling and make any adjustments as necessary and hope I can keep this up long term and make it an actual lifestyle.

 

I lost almost 5 lbs this week eating like this.  I am pretty sure I won’t lose that much next week, but I’m confident that I will lose something next week and that’s all that matters: that my weight is trending in the direction I want it to.

 

Also, a note on that “dent test” and water retention.  I had noticed the last few weeks that my calves were puffy and kind of swollen looking.  However, now they’re smooth and nicely tapered like they should be.  So, yea, I was definitely retaining water.

Weekly Recap

I’m posting this a day early as I’m working overtime tonight on the night shift, then I have a bunch of stuff to do in the morning so I won’t be going to bed until about noon tomorrow.  Eeek!  So, I’m weighing in and posting my recap today.  After my meltdown on Saturday, I got it together and devised a new plan of attack in hopes of seeing some DOWNWARD movement on the scale this time. 

• Saturday: I was super upset, so I hit the gym as hard as I could.  I started breaking my gym sessions into upper body/core and lower body/core.  I didn’t have time to do all the exercises I had written down for myself to do as I spent too much time having a meltdown.  But I did get about 2/3 of them done and I had a pretty good sweat going and I did get a decent calorie burn, so we’ll call it a win.

• Sunday: cycling day!  I had originally planned on 24 miles.  Then I couldn’t sleep Saturday night and when I woke up changed it to 18-20 miles, depending on time.  I had plans to hang out with Amanda at noon to watch the Minions movie (highly recommend, by the way…super duper cute!), so I needed to be done by 11am.  I get all ready and I’m wheeling my bike toward the front door and I’m all like, why is my back wet?  So I take my hydration pack off and the whole bottom is wet.  I go into the kitchen and take the bladder out and wipe it off with paper towels and discover that the drinking tube was cracked and that was what was leaking.  Great.  There went my 20 mile bike ride.  I drove to Walmart and bought a new hydration pack and then hit the road.  I had about an hour and 15 minutes to do my ride.  I figured I’d just ride out until the timer on my heart rate monitor said about 38 minutes, then turn around and go back home.  I got 12.4 miles in and was done and walking in my front door at 10:56.  Boom.  It was a good ride, but, as I’m sure you know, it was way shorter than I wanted.  But, I’ll make up for it this Sunday when I [hopefully] ride 24 miles.

• Monday: I still had 1 virtual race medal hanging out on my desk, waiting for me to earn it.  This one was for a 10K and I had to do it as a 10K because it says “10K” on the medal.  Anyway, Sunday night I set my alarms for 6:05 and 6:08.  I was out of bed by 6:15 and getting ready.  Like before last Monday’s run, I was really excited about running and didn’t sleep all that well.  I had laid out my running outfit Sunday night, so all I had to do was brush my teeth, put my clothes on, braid a ponytail and out the door I went.  This was my first run with my new hydration pack.  I like it way better than the one I had.  It just sits better and doesn’t rub.  Also, the strap that clicks together across my chest has better placement.  My other one, in order to keep it from bouncing around and annoying the crap out of me, I had to tighten the shoulder straps way down and then the chest strap buckled under my boobs and I just plain didn’t like that.  this one buckles across my chest and is super comfortable.  The only issue I had with it was that it didn’t have a little tension hook thingie to click the tube mouth piece into, so the tube was just hanging straight down and flopping around (this was Sunday when I was cycling, but when I got home from cycling…), I dug the old one out of the trash and looked at the hook thingie on that one and sure enough, it could come off, so I took it off and put it on the new one and voila I’m now 100% happy with my new hydration pack!

Anyway, I went for my 10K run and it went fantastic!  I didn’t have to stop even once!  Not even for 10 seconds!  I the one traffic light I had to go through changed in my favor and stayed green long enough for me to cross the road and all my other road crossings were traffic free and at all the stop signs I went through, everyone was nice and waited for me and didn’t try to run me over!  I was so very happy that I did the whole 10K without stopping to rest!  This was also my second run in my new Hokas.  I’m still in love.  In fact, while running this day, I was thinking how was I ever going to be motivated to rotate with my Mizunos that are nowhere near top mileage and still have loads of life left in them?  Haha.  I’ll deal with it, that’s how! 

My Polar M400 activity tracker kinda crapped out on me.  It actually started on Saturday.  I went to charge it so it would be fully charged for my bike ride Sunday morning, but I plugged it in, it said “charging” for like a second then bleeped at me and said it was at 100% battery.  I forgot to charge it Sunday, so I plugged it in Monday after my run.  Nothing.  Like it made no acknowledgement that I had plugged it in…to the charger or to my computer.  Great.  I had a couple options.  1) call Polar and mail it to them for warranty repair, but be completely without a daily activity tracker for about 3 weeks, maybe more.  2) go to the store, buy a new Polar, put mine in the box and then return it and say it wouldn’t charge or sync when I plugged it in.  And then there’s option 3) go buy a FitBit Surge.  I don’t remember if I ever posted this previously, but when my original Polar did this exact same thing and then like a month later I discovered the Surge’s existence, I decided that if the replacement ended up crapping out on me, I was going to buy the Surge.  So, I went and bought the Surge.  And it was fully charged in time for me to actually wear it to work this day!  YAY!  So, watch for a product review (unsponsored, of course) on the FitBit Surge after I’ve been using it for a couple weeks.  FYI: I named my Surge Sergio.  So if I talk about Sergio in my workout recaps, that’s who/what I’m talking about.

• Tuesday: I took this as a REST DAY!!!  I had my appointment with my therapist this day, so there was walking around town done post-appointment.  Speaking of walking pre- and post-appointment, I did a little extra today.  I parked in the parking garage at work and still had about 30 minutes until my appointment.  I didn’t feel like just sitting in my car, so I started walking.  I ended up walking about 1.15 miles and got to my appointment with 5 minutes to spare.  After my appointment, I did my usual walk to Einstein Bros for a fountain drink (just got tea this time…and omg their tea is delicious).  While I turned the GPS on, I forgot to start it recording, so I missed out recording about ¼ of a mile of my post-appointment walk.  Booo!  But, when I left Einstein’s I did turn it on.  After that, I logged 1.11 miles of walking.  I think I will be doing this EVERY Tuesday before and after my appointments!  So, a nice active rest day this day!  Sergio logged exactly 6300 steps by the time I returned to my car post-appointment.  Nice!

Monday night was the first time I’ve slept with the FitBit Surge on (obviously), so I checked my sleep stats when I got up Tuesday morning.  I really like the way it tracks sleep.  It’s way more in depth than the Polar was.  The Polar would just show that I was laying down or that I was up (like when I woke up to go to the bathroom, which I do at least once a night).  Sergio tells me at what points during the night I was having restless sleep!  I toss and turn a lot during the night, apparently.  No wonder I sometimes wake up still tired.

Also, I hit 10,000 steps this day around 8:30pm and my wrist was all vibrating and stuff and I was like why is Sergio vibrating?  I looked and he was all lit up and said “10,000!!”  Haha, nice.

• Wednesday: my first workout with Sergio!!!  I was really excited to see how it tracked my workout.  I went to the gym and did my lower body and core session.  It went really well!  Sergio calculated my calories differently than the Polar did and said I burned less.  But you know what?  I’m perfectly okay with that because 1) it’s probably more accurate anyway and 2) I have decided I won’t be eating my exercise calories anymore, so it’s basically a moot point what my calorie burn is.  When I went to get on the stair climber, I was a little disappointed to not see a “stair climber” selection on Sergio’s exercise options.  I could have sworn that when my friend Neetu showed me her Surge earlier this year that hers had that option.  So I just used the generic “workout” option.  Because my arm was bent while using the stair climber, it would read my pulse lower than I know it was or it would either lose signal on my heartrate or otherwise couldn’t read it.  When I got home, I logged into my FitBit profile and figured out how to add different exercises to Sergio’s exercise options, so I now have “stair climber,” “bike” and “walk” in the list of exercise options I can choose!  YAY!  Also, on my 20 minute break at work, I walked up and down, around and around the parking garage.  Got in 2000 more steps toward my goal of 10,000!

• Thursday: two of the tabata DVDs I ordered last week arrived earlier this week, so OF COURSE I had to give one of them a test run!  I chose the 3^rd installment of the one I already had, so that’s called Breathless Body 3.  #2 should arrive sometime later next week, so I’m excited about that one.  I really, really liked this tabata workout.  Also, I think I’m just plain in love with tabata training!  This one structured the intervals differently.  Instead of 20 seconds of working out at full blast and a 10 second recovery for 8 “reps” of the exercise, this one did 4 reps of 40 seconds of the exercise and a 20 second recovery.  There was still 8 exercises and then an ab routine at the end for the cooldown, which I skipped because I seriously need to clean my floor and didn’t want to be laying on it right now.  Next time, though, for sure.  I walked on my lunch break at work again and hit 10,000 steps shortly after going back to work from my break!  Woohoo!

• Friday (today): my second REST DAY of the week, but it seems I’m all about working out now because I did NOT rest.  I did this kettlebell workout I found on the Runner’s World website the other day.  The only problem is that I ONLY have a 12 lb kettlebell so it was basically go big or go home…hahaha!  All I did otherwise today was pay bills (hooray payday) and sleep in a little in anticipation of staying up until NOON tomorrow, but not too much because I’m also apparently all about waking up “early.” (early = before 9am)  Ugh.  I see at least one 5 hour energy in my future…haha. 

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Here is this week’s scale and Omron stats:

How do I feel about this?  I feel effing AMAZING!!!  4.8 lbs gone in less than a week!  I know it was what I was eating because my exercise has been on point.  I want to send a million thanks out to my friend Stacy for helping me reevaluate my eating and then helping me restructure it.  I have so much more energy than before.  What I was eating was literally weighing me down in more ways than just on the scale.  I was so lethargic and cranky and now I'm bouncy and happy!

This week I tried a new-to-me eating plan.  It’s still one I came up with practically/mostly on my own.  I did have some help from my friend Stacy with ideas of what would be good to do as far as structuring my meals and how to deal with my calorie intake.  I will post tomorrow or Sunday about all that, though, in a post all its own…because, believe me, it needs its own post!

Weekly Recap

So, even though I gained a pound last week and was very frustrated, I was determined to not let it get me down.  I’m not going to lie, it took the wind out of my sails and it was an EFFORT to do my workouts for Saturday and Sunday.  I procrastinated big time for both and really wasn’t motivated on Saturday but I was pissed off because some jerk off hit my car with such force to actually completely remove the paint down to the treated metal.  I mean, seriously, how are you that much of a jerk face? 

 

I’m was overtime Thursday and Friday night, so in order to make sure I hit my 5 workouts this week, I had to workout 5 days in a row!

 

• Saturday: So yea, I had negative energy to burn off so I went to the gym.  I had a great workout.  I killed the stair climber.  54 floors in less than 10 minutes!  I was toggling back and forth between speed 11 and 12 every minute.  That seriously helped me burn off a lot of that negative energy I had going on.  Then, I hit the weights and pushed myself as much as I could.  I got a little too ambitious on a couple of the exercises and had to drop the weight after a few reps.  But hey!  I tried!  That counts, right?

I hung out with my friend Heather before I went to the gym.  After we ate Mexican food, we went to Total Nutrition because she’s interested in finding a good appetite suppressant without many or, preferably, any side effects.  While we were talking to the guy about different things, I asked him about BCAAs (branch chain amino acids).  I decided I wanted to try them, but didn’t want to pay their $40 price tag.  So, after Heather went home, I went to Vitamin Shoppe and checked out what they had in BCAAs and found what looked like a good one on sale for $22, so I got it.  I took it before the gym.

 

The main reason Heather and I hung out (aside from we like to hang out and such) was to go running shoe shopping.  She’s trying to lose weight and get in better shape and she loves running and wanted to get professionally fitted for some running shoes.  They were a little more than she was expecting, so she got fitted and found a pair she loved and had the sales lady write the brand and model down so when she gets the money in a couple weeks she can go back and get them.  I think the shoes she found were the Saucony Glide 7s.  Anyway, SIDETRACKED!!!  So, I was hoping when we went that they would have Hoka One One shoes that I could take for a test run around the store.  THEY DID!  And, even better, they still had some of last season’s Cliftons in stock…and…they had them in my size!!!  They were discounted like $40+ and were a super cute color, so I bought them.

 

• Sunday: was going to do that 25 mile bike ride I was originally going to do last Sunday, but, since I procrastinated until it was well after noon, I dropped to 20 miles.  First, I had to make sure I had a spare inner tube after last Sunday’s tire skewering debacle…so that was part of my procrastination.  But only part…and a small part at that.  But, so, anyway, at about 3pm I finally headed out on my bike.  Got done around 5pm.  I forgot to take any salt tabs before heading out and while I didn’t cramp until after I got back home, the heat was really affecting me by the time I got home.  About 2 miles before I was back home, I really started feeling fatigued.  I felt like I barely pedaled into my apartment complex parking lot and to my building.  My feet were hurting and I was so fatigued.  Don’t ask me why my feet were hurting because I have no clue…but they did.  I completed the 20 miles in 1 hour and 37 minutes.  And I’m super glad I cut it down to 20 because I literally do not think I could have made that additional 5 miles without consequence.  Lesson learned.  I took the BCAAs before my ride just like I took them before the gym Saturday evening and noticed a slight increase in energy.

• Monday: Sunday I decided that I was going to go for a run Monday morning!  I was super excited to try out my new Hokas plus I had a virtual race medal burning a hole in my desk (ha!) that I needed to earn because the race period ends on the 8^th (today).  I think I signed up to run it as a 10K, but since it had been 3 weeks since I ran, I opted to bump it down to a 5K.  I figured I would be slow and have to stop and walk, but nope!  I ran the entire 3.1 miles and I ran by feel.  The first mile was in the 10:20’s and miles 2 and 3 were in the 10:50’s for an overall average of 10:46 min/mi.  I was comfortable the whole run and never felt like I was pushing myself too much.  I don’t want to get into a review of the Hokas right now, but I love them.  They are extremely comfortable and my feet felt fantastic the entire run and weren’t even remotely tired post-run.  I also ran this run in a skirt!  I had to Body Glide my inner thighs so I didn’t start a fire while I was running.  It went great!  No chafing!  But…I was so excited to go run that I couldn’t sleep.  Haha.  It took forever to go to sleep and then I couldn’t stay asleep.  I woke up like every 30 minutes.  To say I was chomping at the bit would probably be a bit of an understatement.  I again took my BCAAs and I did notice a difference this time for sure.  The energy increase was definitely noticeable.

• Tuesday: my therapist wasn’t scheduling appointments this week, so no therapy this day.  So, no walking around post-appointment to help me hit my activity goal for the day.  I decided I would go to the gym for my second visit this week on this day since I didn’t have to basically be at work (my therapist’s office is like 3 blocks from work so I park at work and walk there) by 11am so no time constraints this day.  It was also good that I didn’t have a therapy appointment because I had a migraine Monday evening and was just plain exhausted and slept until 9am this day.  But I had a kick butt workout at the gym.  I hit 56 floors on the stair climber in 10 minutes!  Woo!  Then, I started the process of upping the weight on some of the strength exercises that I haven’t upped the weight on in a while.  I’m really noticing a difference in how I feel when I take my BCAAs.  I just have way more energy, but don’t feel at all jittery or like my blood pressure was too high, or anything like that.  It just feels like natural extra energy and I really like it.  The only downside is that the BCAAs give me heartburn.  After talking with a workout fiend friend of mine, apparently that is pretty normal, so I’ll just deal with it and keep the Pepto nearby.

• Wednesday: workout #5 of 5 for the week!  It was a toss-up between going for a second bicycle ride or doing a workout DVD.  I chose to do my Amy Dixon Breathless Body tabata workout DVD!  I’d been looking forward to this workout for a couple days since I had decided on Monday that this would be the workout DVD I would do this day.  It was a GREAT workout!  I alternated between the level 1 and 2 options for the different exercises and didn’t even attempt any of the level 3 options.  This workout was so great that I decided to check out Amazon after I was done to see if I could find any more tabata workout DVDs and lo and behold Amy Dixon has Breathless Body 2 & 3 workout DVDs!  I’ll be buying those as soon as all my bills clear my bank account.  WOOT!

• Thursday: worked overtime on the night shift on Wednesday, so no workout.  I am so sore from the tabata workout from Wednesday.  All those squats it had me doing.  So my butt, my inner thighs and my quads are super sore.  Just tells me I need to do more squats, squats, squats!

 

• Friday: worked overtime on the nights shift again on Thursday, so no workout this day either.  Still pretty sore from the tabata workout.  Love it!  Can’t wait to order Amy Dixon’s other 2 tabata workout DVDs!

 

I have to say, I am now fully in the habit of working out every day that I have the opportunity and time to workout.  Not only am I fully enjoying my workouts but I am 100% looking forward to each and every one of them.  I am looking forward to pushing myself each time and seeing how much further I can take my efforts.  When it’s time to pick out what my workout DVD I’ll be doing each week, I flip through my DVD library and try to find the one that will give me the most of a challenge and will give me the biggest calorie burn!  That’s one reason I was looking on Amazon to find more tabata workouts.  They push me and give me a good burn.  I love my Bob Harper Yoga for the Warrior, but I only burned 250 calories in 60 minutes when I did it last week.  Unacceptable!  I will use it as an add on workout, but no more as a stand-alone workout.

 

But, my point when I started that last paragraph was when I woke up Wednesday and realized it was my last workout for this workout week, I got sad.  Haha!  Seriously, though, working out has become such a habit for me now that my day is no longer complete if I don’t have the opportunity to do a workout.

 

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And now on to the weigh in portion of this post.

Soooo...now we talk about how I feel about this.  Let's just say this...I had a bit of a meltdown today.  Granted, the meltdown wasn't completely about what the scale and the Omron said, that was just sort of a tipping point.  I gained 1.2 lbs this week.  Since I know I've been pushing myself with the weights during strength training sessions, I wanted to do some math.  So I figured out what last week's 29.9% body fat of last week's 190.2 lb weigh in was: 56.9 lbs.  Then I figured out what 30.1% of 191.4 was: 57.6.  The difference?  I gained .7 of a pound in fat.  Sure, I gained .5 of a pound of solid muscle, but really?  .7 of a pound of fat?!?!?!  

I had a heart to heart session with a friend online.  We talked about how I'm eating and how she eats.  She had me do a pressure test on my shin and we discovered that I'm retaining water.  So that is probably responsible for some of the weight gain.  The longer her and I talked, the calmer I became.  So, this next week I'm going to modify how I eat and see if it makes a difference.  Here's what a typical day of food will look like for me next week:

• Breakfast: 3 eggs & a protein shake

• Lunch: tilapia tacos

• Snack: fat free plain yogurt w/fruit

• Dinner: an apple

I'll take an extra apple to work with me in case I feel extra hungry, but otherwise, that will be all I'll be eating in a day.  I'm also not going to be eating my exercise calories this week.  She suggested taking water pills, but I'm not sure with my eating disorder history if that would be a good idea for me.  We'll see if I can control my water retention without using pills.

 

I’ve decided that on the first Saturday of every month I will post new measurements and new progress photos along with my weigh ins. 

 

I want to make a note about what I wrote about earlier in the week about body image issues.  I didn’t say it in that post, but I wanted to say it now.  When I look in the mirror, I don’t always see all the progress I’ve made.  I don’t always see the loss of over 10 inches off my waist.  I don’t always see that I’ve lost 80 pounds.  I don’t always see that my face is usually blessed with a smile because I don’t hate myself anymore.  A lot of times, when I look in the mirror, I still see that fat, miserable, uncomfortable girl I used to be.  I’m struggling with accepting that this is going to be a life long struggle.  Just like controlling my eating disorder is going to be a life long struggle.  When you think about the big picture like that, it’s just so overwhelming and makes you feel so small and like you’ll never be able to succeed when all you do is take 3 steps forward only to fall backward 4 steps, and repeat.  But, even though I haven’t reached the end of my weight loss journey, I want to stop myself right here and remind myself that it IS worth it.  I will be so much happier with myself, my life, my body and so much more proud of myself for sticking to it despite all my setbacks once I’ve reached my goal and changed from a loser to a maintainer.  You better believe that once I’ve reached the status of maintainer that I will be framing, side by side, (what I call) my “fat me” picture and my goal weight picture and hanging it on my “Wall of Me.”

Gym Options

24 hour fitness sent me an email the other day with a $0 initiation fee and 1 month free offer if I sign back up by sept 5^th.  It’s been almost a year since I canceled my membership with them because even though I wanted to maintain my 24 hour membership AND my Planet Fitness membership, I just couldn’t afford it at the time.  PF was closer and more convenient and also cheaper so if I didn’t go to the gym often or at all, it wasn’t a HUGE waste of money.

 

I would really like to start swimming and doing TRX and other non-weight-machine exercises that they have available for their members that Planet Fitness just doesn’t have.  But I’m not sure.  I mean.  there are 3 options here: 

1) take the offer and also keep my PF membership and just go to 24 when I want to do exercises that PF doesn’t have equipment for

2) take the offer and cancel my PF membership

3) ignore the offer and just stick with PF.  I kinda really want to do option 1. 

 

I want to train for and compete in a triathlon next year, so I’d ideally need a lap pool to build up my swimming fitness so that I’ll survive the swim portion of a tri.  And then, I would definitely prefer to keep my PF membership because the one I go to is just 1.5 miles from my apt and is super convenient,  So, if I don’t have time to drive to a 24 location (which the closest 2 are both about 8 miles away from me…I mean, there is a Super Sport location like 2 miles away from me, but that one takes the $50/mth membership dues in order to access and I’m just not paying that for a gym membership, even if it is the only membership I have), then I don’t have to skip my workout…I can just go to PF. 

 

PF has limited weight amounts on their machines for insurance purposes (how they keep their membership rates so low).  But I’m not maxed out on the available weight on ALL machines, just a couple of them.  But, I have almost a month to think about it.  However, even though I am going to think about it until the end of this month before “pulling the trigger” and accepting the offer, I am like 90% sure I’m going to go ahead and accept the offer.  I’ve spoken to my friend Amanda and she agrees with me that option 1 is the best decision for me with all the different things I want to do.  I mean, I would absolutely LOVE to be able to go for a swim.  Heck, I could ride my bike to 24 (8 miles), swim, then ride my bike home (8 miles) and get a great semi-brick workout!  Heck, if I wanted to, I could even throw in a 2-4 mile run after the swim and before the bike ride home!  Oh yes, I’m really liking this and starting to get excited about the possibilities here.  Oh yea, and they occasionally have an AM boot camp class that would be a fantastic way to mix up my workouts!

Body Image Issues

The last couple weeks I’ve been having an issue with my body image.  I haven’t been berating myself for letting myself regain the weight I had lost in the first 3 months of the year with that 90-day challenge I did.  But I have been getting down about how I look in the mirror.  Like, I don’t mind how I look from the side.  My stomach doesn’t poof out over the top of my underwear from the side and looks fairly flat, even if it’s fuller than I’d like it to be.  But then I turn to the front and I see how squishy my stomach looks and how lumpy my hips are and I just feel disgusted.  I’m really trying to not feel that way about what I see in the mirror…but it’s hard.  And really, it’s not what I see in the mirror that is the actual issue.  What I think I’m actually disgusted with is the fact that I keep losing and gaining and losing and gaining the same 15-30 lbs and I’m so tired of it and fed up with it.  I’m ready to be done with this whole losing weight process and be a maintainer.  I know maintenance won’t be any easier, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry from one month to the next whether or not my clothes will fit or look good on me. 

What can I do about this?  Well, I can make sure that this is the last time I have to go through the whole losing weight thing.  I can stick to my eating plans and make healthier choices, not eat food just because it’s there (ie-spreads at work for going away parties, birthdays, etc).  I can also keep up with working out 5 days a week…and keep up with the variety of the workouts.  Now that I’m pretty sure my break from running is mostly over (but I’m not going to be running more than twice a week for another couple weeks yet…then I’ll start my 12 week marathon training program…d’oh, only 12 weeks, but it is what it is, right?), I can have even MORE variety because I’ll be running once or twice a week on top of the other things.  I want to keep cycling once a week and the gym twice a week.  I have a couple options there.

 

OPTION A:

• gym twice a week, by itself

• cycling one a week, by itself

• running twice a week, by itself

 

OPTION B:

Double up workouts as follows:

• cycling + gym one day

• short run + gym one day

• longer run by itself

• workout DVD

• a “workout” run (ie-speedwork, hills)

 

There are other ways I can break up the workouts to make sure I’m getting all my cross training in every week, that is just 2 examples.  Since I’ll be starting up an abbreviated marathon training program in a couple weeks, I need to start working on that schedule and figuring out how I’m going to do everything.  I think I’m going to keep it to 3 runs a week.  I’m not going for any time goals with my marathons.  I just want to have fun and finish within the time limits.

 

How will all this impact my body image?  Well, if I’m doing everything I possibly can to ensure that I’m as healthy as I can be and as physically fit as I can be, then I’m bound to just feel better about my appearance in general.  I will be able to focus more on my body’s strengths rather than its very few short comings.  This past week, even though I am dealing with accepting a 1 pound gain on the scale and trying to keep it in perspective (only .1% gained in body fat, so therefore the gain was most likely mostly muscle gain) and not be upset about it, when working out I’ve been trying to focus on how much more defined my muscles are now that I’m doing strength training on a regular basis.  I’ve been trying to focus on the fact that, thanks to muscle memory, I have been able to steadily bump up the amount of weight I’m lifting on all exercises over the past 3+ weeks. 

 

I think that if I can keep increasing my focus on how my body is functioning and how strong it is and how shapely my arms and shoulders and back are and how nice my legs look in a running skirt, I think I will be alright. 

What's Cookin'

My friend Amanda gave me a Crockpot recipe book last weekend.  So, I decided to flip through it and find a recipe or two that I'd like to try.  There were a bunch I wanted to try, but I picked just one as there was a recipe from my Fast Metabolism Diet cookbook I had been wanting to try forever.  So, one dish for lunches and one for dinners for the week!

AVOCADO CHILI

Ingredients:
• 1 lb lean ground turkey, browned and drained
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 2 heaping spoonfuls chili powder
• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 3 tbsp parley or cilantro
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 15 oz can white or kidney beans, low sodium
• 15 oz can black or pinto beans, low sodium
• 15 oz can lentils or adzuki beans, low sodium
• 4-5 medium zucchini, chopped
• 4 cups (32 oz) tomato soup, low sodium
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 avocados, diced

Directions: 
• put meat, onions, chili powder, garlic, parsley or cilantro, and crushed red pepper flakes into a slow cooker on high.
• cover and set aside while prepping the remaining ingredients.
• open, drain and rinse all cans of beans.  add the beans, zucchini and soup to the pot and stir well.
• cook on high for 4-5 hours, or low for 6-8 hours.
• stir and taste occasionally, adjusting seasonings as needed.
• add the sea salt just before serving to preserve its nutrients.
• serve with diced avocado.

**NOTE: I found that to easily dice the avocado, I cut it in half, removed the pit and then cut a cross-hatch pattern in the avocado with a knife and then used a spoon to removed the diced pieces.

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ASIAN GINGER BEEF W/BOK CHOY & MIRACLE NOODLES

Ingredients:
• 2.25 lbs boneless beef chuck, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 tbsp peanut oil
• 3 green onions, cut into 1/2 inch slices
• 6 cloves garlic
• 1 cup low sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tsp Asian chili paste
• 4 packages of Miracle Noodle fettuccine noodles
• 3 cups bok choy, trimmed, washed and cut into 1 inch pieces

Directions:
• heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until hot.  sear beef on all sides in batches to prevent crowding, turning each piece as it browns.  sear last batch of beef with onions and garlic.
• transfer to a 5-6 quart slow cooker.  add broth, water, soy sauce, ginger and chili paste.  stir well to combine.  cover; cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours, or until beef is very tender.
• drain all 4 packages of Miracle Noodles, rinse, heat in microwave safe container for 4 minutes, drain and rinse again.  set aside.
• when the meat is don
e in the slow cooker, add the noodles and stir, allowing noodles to mingle with the sauce/broth mixture.  add the bok choy and stir.  heat on high until bok choy is tender-crisp, about 15 minutes.
• garnish with cilantro and serve hot.

Weekly Recap

 

And yet again I have a week worth recapping!  Woohoo!!!

 

• Saturday: this day was a kind of a crap shoot, so to speak.  I was going to try to get up early enough to workout before meeting a friend for lunch at the Indian buffet, but I didn’t because I was sooooo tired from working overtime the day before.  I told myself that if I felt like it, then I would go to the gym later in the day, but that rarely happens, so I wasn’t really expecting to get a workout in this day.  However, when I put my sliced salmon in the bag of homemade marinade and it needed to sit in there for at least 2 hours, I got the itch and ended up at the gym and got in a kick ass workout.  So, I’m super proud of myself for 1) going and working out when I hadn’t exactly planned on working out, and 2) not phoning in my workout and actually upping the weights on some of the exercises.

• Sunday: I had a 25 mile bike ride planned for this day.  I stayed up super late tending to the salmon jerky Saturday night and so didn’t get out of bed until like 10am.  I had plans with my friend Amanda, so I cut the ride short to just 20 miles.  I headed out the door and was cruising along.  I hit mile 5.4 and BOOM flat tire.  Ugh, great.  I almost called Amanda to see if she could come pick me up, but then remembered that Target wasn’t far away and they sell bike inner tubes, so I made the 1 mile, mostly uphill in 90°+ heat and no breeze, walk to Target to get an inner tube.  I then changed my tube and discovered that my tire had been skewered by a headless nail.  Nice.  I abandoned the 20 mile ride and adjusted my route.  Ended up with 15 miles on the bike and 1 mile walked.

• Monday: the gym was scheduled for this day and the gym is what was done.  I like to push myself a little harder each time I do the stair climber to do at least 1 more floor of stairs in my 10 minutes.  My ultimate goal is to do 100 floors in 10 minutes.  This means I will basically be running up the stairs and I really like this idea.  After the stairs I hit the weights for about an hour.  I’m thinking that since I have going to the gym twice a week down pat as a habit right now that I should maybe split my workouts into 2 different workouts: upper & core and lower & core.  This way I think I can make more progress with the exercises I’m doing than I am by doing a full body workout every time I go to the gym for weights.  And by doing core both times, I can add more core exercises, like leg lifts, Russian twists, and so on, to improve my core strength. 

• Tuesday: got up and did the Bob Harper’s Yoga for the Warrior workout DVD.  I cut it pretty close with this one.  I got to my therapy appointment with like 6 minutes to spare.  Oops.  Shouldn’t have hit snooze so many times, but I just did not want to get out of bed.  Anyway, I did the Yoga for the Warrior DVD that I had meant to do last Tuesday but didn’t get up early enough to do it.  It wasn’t much of a calorie burning workout, even though it was a challenging one.  I ended this workout hoping that I would be sore later or the next day.

• Wednesday: REST DAY!!!! Sort of.  I had CPR/AED recertification class this day.  I wore my chest strap as I wasn’t sure if it would be enough physical activity to count as a workout.  Plus, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would hop on a rowing machine as well.  I didn’t turn on the heart rate monitor while doing CPR training…it wasn’t enough to be considered exercise.  Not even close.  But, I did go across the way afterward to the gym and use the rowing machine for 2000 meters!  Yay!  Not much, but every little bit counts and, well, this was technically a rest day.  I’m proud of myself that I chose to do something active, no matter how small of an effort it was.

• Thursday: was thinking that since I’d already gone to the gym twice this week that maybe I would get up early and go for that 10K run to earn my virtual race medal (well, one of them…I now have 2 waiting to be earned…haha), but I decided by the time I went to bed Wednesday night that I wouldn’t even try getting up early and that I would be heading to the gym for day #3.  I did decide to mix it up just a smidge but changing the way I did a couple exercises and added the leg press machine to my workout.  I changed from the seated bicep curl and tricep curl machines to the cable machine with the rope attachment for standing bicep curls and over-the-head tricep extensions. 

• Friday: REST DAY!!!!  I worked overtime Thursday night, so I just slept in the morning before having to head right back to work in the afternoon.  Then I worked another double shift.

 

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I made salmon jerky last weekend to eat for lunch most of this week.  I only say “most” because while I used an entire side of salmon, it was only enough for four 4.5 oz servings of salmon.  I had intended on it being enough for all 5 lunches this week.  Instead, I had the last remaining serving of fried rice from last week’s dinners for the 5^th lunch.  I have to say that my first attempt at making jerky is a big success for me!  It’s super yummy and not over dried!  I will be making it again! 

 

Even though I ate an entire medium pizza on Sunday, I had more than enough calories (thanks to exercise) to cover it!  And I had a bunch of calories left over at the end of the day.  YAY!  Something I noticed this week was that I’m leaning toward making better choices with my food (with the exception of the entire medium pizza…ha!).  Hooray!  3 weeks of tracking what I eat and counting calories and trying to stay within a specific calorie count has made me subconsciously start making better choices.  There was leftover cake from a party on the shift before mine at work on Tuesday and I only had a small piece and was satisfied.  On Wednesday there was a fundraiser at work that was selling sausage wrap plates and while I love sausage wraps, I wasn’t even tempted to go get one!  YAY!  But, that said, I worked overtime on the night shift Thursday night and they were having a going-away party for one of the guys who was going to a different section in our agency and there were chicken salad croissant sandwiches, pickles, potato chips and cheesecake.  I had a little bit of everything, but I don’t really think I overdid it.  I didn’t gorge myself and I certainly didn’t eat until it hurt.  I just ate what looked good until I felt satisfied and that was good enough.

 

I got the word from my supervisor last weekend that my time off request that I put in for the South Padre Island Marathon is approved, so I registered for it!  Also, I have been in contact with the social media managers for this marathon and I am pretty sure I will be helping to promote it!  WOOHOO!  I’m super excited for that!  Also, since my time off request starts on November 12^th and not the 13^th like I thought it did, I might just head down to South Padre on the 12^th and stay 2 nights and make it a mini-vacation!  I’ve never actually been to South Padre Island, so I think it will be fun to do a little bit of touristy stuff on top of just going down there to run a marathon.  

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Now to go over my weekly weigh in portion of this post...here's the scale and Omron:

Yep, that says "+1 lb."  I'm so frustrated with this.  I do great for a couple/few weeks, a month, maybe 2 months, and then BAM I start putting weight back on no matter how much I adhere to my eating plans and my workout plans.  I don't understand why this happens to me.  I know that it does happen to people, a lot of people, and I'm one of those people.  I do have to keep a few things in mind:

• my body fat only went up .1%...that's 1/10th of a percent.  That's nothing.  

• I have gone to the gym and lifted weights, and have been steadily increasing the weight I'm lifting over the last 3 weeks, 2-3 times a week.

• my pants are looser than they were last week.

• my stomach is looking closer to flat.

With all those things taken into consideration, I'm going to tell you that I am swallowing my pride and am going to just wait it out, keep up my eating plan and working out at least 5 times a week and see what the numbers are next Saturday.  Now, a friend requested I take and post a current set of "before" (or maybe they're more accurately "during") pictures.  

I am now 2.8 lbs down from where I started 3 weeks ago.  I'm hoping that I will see another drop when I step on the scale next Saturday.  I have a goal to lose as much of 20 lbs as I can by October 24th.  That's 12 weeks to lose 20 lbs.  If I can lose an average of 1.6 lbs a week, then I can hit that goal.  

I bought some new running shoes today.  They're Hoka One One Cilftons.  They are last year's model and thankfully (HALLELUJAH!) they had one pair in my size left!  I saved about $40 or so by being able to buy last year's model over this year's model.  I have never run in Hokas before, so expect to be reading a product review from me after I've run in them for about a month.  I'm still on my break from running, but I'm seriously hoping these new pretty shoes will kick start me to be done with my break sooner rather than later.  I have to be running regularly again mid-August to make sure I'm decently trained for the South Padre Island Marathon on November 14th.