Where have you been?

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It’s been months.  I know.

The good news is that I’ve stuck with the program.  I’ve lost 53 pounds so far.  The bad news is I totally neglected to update my blog.

So here’s what I’ve been up to.

Through June, I continued to walk and lift weights, but to be totally honest, I got bored with it and a little lonely.  That’s a lot of solitude every day, and while it was great at first, it became old and tired quickly.  I started looking into CrossFit.

I went to Seattle for the first 4 days of July with my family.  We walked over 12 miles every day, just walking to the myriad of activities all over Seattle.  There are so many amazing family attractions and little undiscovered gems in that city.  I swear, I was born to live there.  Perhaps when the kids are grown…

When I returned from Seattle, I emailed the local CrossFit box owner.  I wanted to know if I was ‘in shape’ enough for CrossFit.  I was nervous because of my weight, my limitations (arthritic knee, sciatica in my hip, etc).  He encouraged me to come check it out.

What I found wasn’t just a gym.  It is so much more than that.  Chad, the owner, and his amazing wife Leslie, walked me through everything, provided encouragement, and generally made me feel at home.  After the first day, I was completely addicted.

I have become a little CrossFit obsessed.  I am told this happens to all new CrossFitters.  I worked my way up to five days a week, and then suddenly my body started giving me grief.  So I’ve scaled back to three days a week until things clear up a little, but I have a passion for CrossFit that does not appear to be subsiding.

If you live in the Columbia River Gorge and you have not checked out Columbia Gorge CrossFit, I highly encourage you to do so.  You can learn more at http://www.columbiagorgecrossfit.com.

Today I am starting a challenge provided by a favorite blog of mine, SkinnyMs.com.  It is their Shape Up Size Down, 7-day Pushup Challenge.  I figure it is a small way to supplement my CrossFit habit and keep active on my off days.  So it starts today as soon as I submit this post.

I am also participating in two longer, more in-depth challenges, that begin in the next few weeks.  The first is one I stumbled across from another user on MyFitnessPal.com.  It is the Whole Life Challenge.  The other, which I can thank my CrossFit box for, is the Lurong Living Paleo Challenge 2012.  You can find out more information about either one by clicking the links.

Lastly, I have my first ‘official’ 5k run on September 29th:  the Color Run in Portland, Oregon.  I am going to attempt to run it, but as I mentioned earlier, my body is not cooperating fully right now, so we will see what happens.

That’s it for now.  I have to hustle off to soccer.  I’d love life to be all about me, but right now, it’s all about my two pre-teens who are both wrapped up in sports.  More later!

New Rules

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I can’t believe how long it has been since I posted.  Aye yi yi!  That’s what happens when I get distracted though.  Some might even call it obsessed.

A friend gave me a book several years ago:  The New Rules of Lifting for Women by Lou Schuler.  I have, as you know, been walking three miles a day, but honestly, it was getting a little boring, and I knew eventually I’d have to start challenging myself beyond that, but due to a couple joint issues, I wasn’t prepared to begin all-out running.  I wanted to start strength training, but had no idea where to begin, and as it turns out, this book was the ideal place.

I read it, cover-to-cover, in one day.  As I continued my daily walks, I began plotting and planning, gathering the things I would need and preparing to incorporate strength training into my regimine.  I completed my first workout last night, and I am, once again, exhausted, but invigorated at the same time.

Today’s post is more of a status update and goal review than a book recommendation, although I have learned a great deal from this page-turner.  You should definitely check it out if you, like me, have weight to lose and aren’t sure where to start.

Here’s a review of where I was on May 20th:

  • Daily:  Complete MFP diary entries, take multi-vitamin, meet calorie goal, drink 64 ounces of water.
  • Weigh and log weight daily.
  • Take body measurements, calculate BMI, body fat % weekly.
  • Take calcium supplements daily.
  • Walk three miles a day.

Most of these goals have become habits, I’m happy to say.  I log my food regularly, I am not struggling with meeting calorie goals, and I am taking vitamins and supplements and drinking water with no issue.

I have added a weight workout program to the mix.  The recommendation of New Rules is to hold off on endurance exercises (long walks & runs) while beginning the lifting program to allow your muscles time to recover, but my intention, as long as my body allows it, is to alternate lifting days and walking days, with one day a week off entirely.

I am still losing weight and inches, but I am not much of a delayed gratification person, so it isn’t fast enough for me.  That attitude is also something I am working on.  I’ve lost 22 pounds since the beginning of April, which, really, I should have no complaints about.  Slow and steady, eh?

To sum it all up, my current goals:

  • Daily:  Log, vitamins & supplements, meet calorie goal, weigh-in, water
  • Monday, Wednesday, Friday:  Strength training
  • Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday:  Endurance (3 mile walk or other cardio)
  • Sunday:  Rest, weekly measurements, prepare for coming week (shop, plan, etc)
  • Blog:  Minimum twice a week
  • Nutrition & Hydration:  Increase water intake; minimum 30g fiber, 75g protein daily

Exhausted…

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Obviously, I haven’t posted for a couple days.  A couple things have been going on, one of which is an utter physical and mental exhaustion.  I want to sleep all the time, but my schedule doesn’t really allow for that.

A number of things could be causing me to be so tired, most likely of which is this major upheaval of my life that is involved with reinventing how I eat, and all of the exercise which had, until recently, been very absent in my life.

I have been reevaluating my diet, and researching a little.  I am currently reading The Skinny Rules: The Simple, Nonnegotiable Principles for Getting to Thin by Bob Harper, of The Biggest Loser  fame.  I have been making myself a student of my body, so to speak, absorbing everything I can find about weight loss success, but mostly about how to eat healthy, not just for weight loss, but for better overall health and well-being.

I think I mentioned I’ve been tired.  When I say tired, I mean tired to the point that I just want to lay down, even if I can’t sleep, I just want to lay and stare off into nothingness.  I don’t want to think, I don’t want to move.  The author of The Skinny Rules offers a rule of thumb:  protein with every meal.  Not only that, but he takes it one step further, suggesting that when you are trying to lose weight, you should consume half your body weight in grams of protein a day.  For example, if you way 150 pounds, you need to eat 75g of protein a day.

Quit holding your breath… I am not going to tell you how many grams I am supposed to eat.  Nice try, though!

The other imperative is to consume 30 to 50 grams of fiber a day.  Now when you look at both of those numbers, they sound like a lot, right?  So before breakfast this morning, I went to the grocery store.  I looked for whole grain breads, ones that were ACTUALLY whole grain.  Do you know how hard that is to find?  I also paid especially close attention to food labels and protein.

I found Dave’s Killer Bread.  Have you tried this stuff?  It’s amazing!!!  I’m talking 4g of fiber and 5-6g of protein PER SLICE.  I hear you thinking, “Yeah, but the calories.”  If the calories are coming from whole grains and proteins, honestly, it’s a lot better than a slice of bread for 30 less calories with nothing to offer your body.  Anyway, Dave’s was by far the healthiest (and also most expensive) bread in the local market.  I bought three different loaves to try.  Because this blog is about healthy fare in the Pacific Northwest, it behooves me to mention that Dave’s Killer Bread is a local company, of Portland Farmer’s Market fame, with a very moving story.  I highly recommend you visit their site or check out my Facebook for a link to the video!

I also stocked up on turkey, chicken and eggs.  I skipped fish, the BEST protein if you are not vegetarian, because I cannot stomach fish.  My parents never really forced it on me as a child, and I just never learned to like it.  (Actually that’s not entirely true, there was one event when I was five or maybe six years old where there was a battle of wills between my mother and I over fish sticks, but she, thankfully, gave in before I had to.)  As an adult, I think it smells horrible, and if it smells horrible, it has to taste horrible, right?

Hey, I know.  Grow up and eat fish.  It’s good for me.  Seriously though, I ate sweet potatoes and mushrooms last week!  That’s enough for now.  I’m not ready to jump off into the fish pond.  Not yet.

So today, I really focused on “good” carbs, high in fiber, and protein.  Most health experts will tell you proteins will make you feel fuller and more satisfied.  I ate breakfast at 8:30.  I had a snack of berries and yogurt when I got back from my run about two hours later, but I wasn’t hungry.  In fact, I wasn’t hungry at all for the rest of the day, but I did make myself eat to meet my calorie goal for the day, including protein every time I ate.

It is 8:22 p.m. and I am not hungry, I don’t even feel like I’m going to be.  Last night at this time, I was ravenous, going to bed early to distract myself from the kitchen.  This is going to be my big focus for now – protein and fiber.  Honestly, I feel better tonight than I have for the last three days.

One final note:  Tomorrow I am giving my body a break.  So many trainers and fitness gurus stress the importance of a day of rest, and so, after 9 days of 3 miles a day, I’m taking a day off to rest, recuperate, and spend a little time tending to my vegetable garden!

Feeding the beast

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In my family, there is a known rule that when a woman from our family is hungry, you clear the path and get them fed, because we are known to be pretty darn… well, bitchy, to put it bluntly.  (Understand that most of the time we are anyway, but when we are hungry, even more so.)

I have noticed, in my case particularly, that it is true.  If I am hungry, I am irritable, nauseous, weak, and tired.  So I have to maintain a certain level of satisfaction to tame the beast.

The other challenge is cravings.  It is totally normal to crave certain types of food when your body is deficient on something.  Hormones can impact cravings, and for those of us who are emotional eaters, stress can also play a big role.

I have really enjoyed learning to eat healthier, but also finding ways to include foods I love or am craving in my day-to-day consumption.  I eat pickles when I feel the need for something salty and crunchy.  When I’m craving ice-cream, I hit the drive-thru at McDonald’s for one of their 150 calorie vanilla ice-cream cones.

Chocolate is a challenge.  I’m a fan of dark chocolate, which reportedly has some health benefits, but sometimes I just want ooey gooey chocolate.  To satisfy that craving, I present you with the 2-ingredient Diet Coke Brownie.  I found this on Pinterest, linking an original post by Aunt Peg’s Recipe Box.  So, with all credit to the writers at Aunt Peg’s, here is the Diet Coke Brownie:

Ingredients:

  • 1 box fudge brownie mix (I used Pillsbury Chocolate Fudge)
  • 1 12-oz. can Diet Coke

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Spray bottom only of 9×13 baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

Pour brownie mix into a large mixing bowl.  Slowly add Diet Coke, stirring to incorporate with brownie mix (soda may fizz quite a bit, you may need to add it in phases).  The batter will be very liquid, but will bake up just fine.

Pour batter into prepared baking dish.  Bake 30-35 minutes (or according to package directions).  Test with a toothpick, brownies may need an additional 5-7 minutes for the toothpick to come out clean.  Allow to fully cool before removing from the pan.

(Makes 24 delicious ooey gooey brownies, approximately 91 calories each – varies slightly by brand)

Two words of caution here:  First, too much of a good thing is a bad thing.  This recipe is for 24 brownies.  If you decide to eat 12 of them (half the pan), the benefit of a reduced-calorie brownie goes out the window.  Second, if you don’t hide them, your family will eat them all and you will have no delicious snacks.  I hide mine on the top shelf of the fridge in a Tupperware container.

Enjoy!

Loathing

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Loathing (n.) – extreme disgust, detestation

It’s a funny emotion, loathing.  Some people who struggle with their weight loathe looking in the mirror.  Others when they step on the scale.  Many loathe that they can’t walk up a flight of stairs without a handrail and a cardiac event. (Okay, okay, maybe not a cardiac event… sarcasm, people, come on!)

Yesterday, I was angry.  I woke up, I had gained weight.  I have been working so hard.  It isn’t fair, and I was so furious.  All day, I battled my emotions of anger, disappointment, self-hate, all the while keeping myself out of the kitchen.

After lunch, I noticed that my rage towards the encounter with my scale that morning hadn’t really caused me to give up.  Now, some people will read this and think, ‘Of course it didn’t.’  People who know me will know I very quickly and easily talk myself out of difficult situations and challenges.  I wasn’t becoming defeated.

My loathing… my extreme disgust… my detestation was motivating me, and let’s be frank, you take motivation wherever you can get it.  I felt the urge to get my 3 miles in.  I felt the need to drink water.  I felt… determination.

I walked, in the very wet rain (is there any other kind?).  I painstakingly completed my food diary.  I drank tons of water.  I slept like a rock.

This morning I woke up with a sense of satisfaction.  My self-loathing was not going to over-come me.

My weight is not the only thing I loathe.  Let’s talk about food for a moment.  I am a very picky eater.  At the same time, I am working so hard to be healthier, that I am looking for new food sources to fulfill certain nutritional needs.

I have been struggling with fiber and potassium, in particular.  Both are things my body requires to function properly, and to be honest, I’ve probably been deficient in both for quite a long time. As I researched food sources, beans kept coming up as a source of both.

Yesterday, I was browsing Pinterest, and I came across a recipe from Dr. Oz’s website for his ‘fat-melting’ vegetarian chili.  Perfect, right?

Then I looked at the ingredients.  Mushrooms… *gag*.  Sweet potato?  Gross, no way!  Carrots, love them raw but cooked?  Yuck.  I loathe all three.  So I started to discount the recipe.

Well, wait a second.  If I grate them up in my food processor, I won’t even know.  Better yet, the family won’t know.  They won’t ask, and if they don’t ask, I don’t have to think about it, so I’ll be able to pretend it isn’t there and eat it!

The article claimed that the chili contained all these foods that really get your metabolism going, so I figured I would give it a shot.  So today I braved the produce section and purchased vegetables I had never made myself eat in my adult life.

This chili is AMAZING!  Seriously, I don’t care if it’s good for you or not, it tastes incredible.  As it turns out, my loathing of my weight and current health status was much stronger than my veggie loathing, and it pushed me to try something new.  What a reward.  I can’t wait for leftovers tomorrow.

Once dinner was taken care of, I needed to get my 3 miles in.  It was getting dark.  It was pouring down rain.  The wind took my breath away.  I walked anyway.  My iPod was getting drenched.  Actually there wasn’t anything that wasn’t getting wet.  I pushed through.  I felt the anger from yesterday rising inside.  Only this time, it was towards the weather.

I loathe the rain.

At one point I actually yelled up at the sky, “REALLY?  Seriously could you rain any harder?”  It did.  I wanted to stop, but I think that my inner self-loathing won over again, because not only did I finish, but I finished a full 7 minutes faster than I had before.

The lesson I take from all this:  Motivation can come from anything.  It can come from a health concern, it can come from positive encouragement, it can even come from a negative emotion like loathing.  The key is to allow yourself to be open to feeling that emotion, being okay with it, and keep moving forward, putting one foot in front of the other.

Tonight I feel peaceful.  Other than the rain and wind, my walk was not painful or particularly difficult.  My body doesn’t hurt.  I feel good.  I’m ready for tomorrow.

 

Woke up on the wrong side of the scale

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Morning routine:  Wake up (read try), stumble to the bathroom, pee, stumble to the bedroom, step onto the scales.  This is the part of my morning where I usually perk up, a little bit of Christmas every day.  Seeing that tiny bit of weight I lost, a reward for my efforts the previous day.

Only… that didn’t happen this morning.  I gained weight, and not just half a pound, but THREE & A HALF pounds.  Where the f**k am I supposed to find motivation in that?

I am struggling with it this morning for sure.  I need some serious attitude intervention.  This is a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other sort of day…

“A bad day for your ego is a great day for your soul.” – Jillian Michaels

Setting attainable goals

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“Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding.  Hold this picture tenaciously.  Never permit it to fade.  Your mind will seek to develop the picture…  Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.”            - Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day.  I mentioned before that I didn’t know where to begin, so I just did.  I knew, though, that doing too much at once would burn me out, and quickly, so I began setting small goals, and slowly adding to them. This was my first set of ‘mini-goals’:

  • Honestly and accurately log all calories consumed into MFP app.
  • Transition away from sugary drinks to diet drinks or water.
  • Drink more water.

I logged my foods every day for a week.  I cut back on my soda of choice.  I struggled greatly with increasing my water intake because I DID NOT WANT IT.  The following week I reassessed my progress and adjusted my goals accordingly:

  • Complete MFP diary entries daily.
  • Drink 64 ounces of water daily.
  • Take multi-vitamin daily.
  • Research better foods and come within 100 calories of daily calorie goal (as set in MFP)

I researched healthy meals, recipes, etc.  I went shopping.  I made enough garden salad that I would have enough for a week.  I made the salad a part of my daily food (which was a big step, I wasn’t really eating any vegetables).  I took my vitamins.  I logged in and completed MFP diary entries religiously.  I still didn’t drink enough water.  I revisited my goals at the end of the week, and revised them again:

  • Daily:  Complete MFP diary entries, take multi-vitamin, meet calorie goal, drink 64 ounces of water.
  • Weigh and log weight daily.
  • Take body measurements, calculate BMI, body fat % weekly.
  • Take calcium supplements daily.
  • Walk three miles a day.

That was three days ago.  I FINALLY want water.  Today is the first day I met the 64 ounces goal.  I have walked three miles a day, every day, for three days.  Today, the third day, was the most difficult.  Everything hurt and I did NOT want to do it.  I did it anyway.  I don’t intend to stop.

While I don’t expect things to change overnight, and I still expect regular bouts with bad attitude and doubt, I can tell that there are actual changes in my thought processes now.  When I look in the mirror, I think, “Hey, you look healthier.  You’re not so bad.”  I don’t feel defeated.  I feel hopeful and motivated.  I no longer look at motivational pictures and quotes on my sister’s Pinterest boards and roll my eyes or make sarcastic remarks in my head.  I find excitement and energy in them.

Honestly, I think making small changes, and seeing my private successes, no matter how small, have begun to restore my belief in myself.

MyFitnessPal (or how I’m doing it)

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My beautiful sister turned me on to MyFitnessPal, an app for smart phones.  I have struggled with my weight all my life, and of course, everything I’ve read about getting to and maintaining a healthy weight drills into you the importance of a food diary, but honestly, who wants to actually look at what they’ve eaten.

This, friends, is the key to success, in my opinion.  Without changing any eating habits, simply raising your awareness level about the things entering your mouth could be enough to change your life.

I can’t profess to be the perfect eater.  Not even close.  Truth be told, I really ate very little before, but the things I did eat, and the fact that I wasn’t giving my body the nutrients I needed, are what lead to a metabolism slower than cold molasses and many extra pounds.

This app, and the website that rocks along with it, is fundamental in my progress.  You could call it the weight loss Facebook, although it is much more than that.  You enter your information into your profile, the app calculates how many calories you need to consume to maintain a calorie defecit and lose weight.  It gives you balanced recommendations for nutrition breakdowns.

To further guide you, there is an in-depth food diary that is so so SO simple!  The food database is huge, and to add to that, there is a scanner option that can scan the UPC label from your food package and input the nutritional value automatically.

There is also an in-depth exercise database, and place to track your overall water intake.

At the end of the day, you complete your entry, and it posts to your MyFitnessPal feed.  You can add friends and post comments on each other’s walls and entries.  You can view their food diaries.  You can get on your sister’s butt about how she hasn’t logged in for three days (yes, it posts a message to that effect on the news feed).

It is incredible, and I highly recommend it.  For the record, I am not affiliated with, nor am I paid for endorsing or supporting MyFitnessPal.com or the app.  I just love it, and I’m having success with it.

 

In the beginning

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I have actually really been making a concentrated effort to change my life for the last two months.  I started out slowly and have been gradually adding healthy habits to my repertoire.

Since I have started, as of today, I have lost 16.2 pounds.  I am shrinking, as evidenced by my baggy clothes.

I’m not ready to share my actual weight.  Someday, when I can look in the mirror and know I am at a healthy weight, and love myself (working on this one), I might share my actual numbers.  For now, you’ll just have to guesstimate or better yet, not think about it at all.

How did I start?  I was browsing in the app store on my phone, and came across a couch-to-5k app.  For those of you that don’t know, couch-to-5k programs are programs that take you from sitting your fat asses on the couch to being able to run a 5k without stopping.  Some programs are 8 weeks, some are 12.  They coach you through 30 minutes or more a day, some three days a week, some more, and gradually get you moving.

Part of the success of a couch-to-5k program is to actually run a 5k race at the culmination of the program.  It just so happens that, on the day I stumbled across this app, three friends on Facebook posted about The Color Run in Portland, Oregon.  So what better way to commit myself to better personal health than get my family to do it with me, pay the registration fee, and be forced to do it?

I did just that.  I called my sisters and my mother and made them all promise to do it with me, then, without hesitation, proceeded to register and pay for all of us.  Boom.  Today – couch.  September 29th, 2012 – 5k.  I’m stuck now, no avoiding it.

Here I was, overweight, out of shape, knee problems, hip problems, headaches and general exhaustion, literally laughing to myself at the insanity of getting myself out of the rut I was in.  At the time, I didn’t believe I could actually do it.  I thought I’d last three days and be back to misery and unhappiness.

The next morning, I started the 5k app.  I went to the park and hit the walking path.  The 30-minute workout took me twice around the complete loop.  Problem:  geese.  There was goose excrement EVERYWHERE!  I looked like someone running through the tire portion of an obstacle course.

Now, I very easily talk myself out of anything that causes me to sweat.  The goose crap was more than I could bear, but I pushed myself through, and spent an hour cleaning up my shoes after I was finished.  Day one down.

Two days later, I went for my second day of the app.  I took the loop, but this time there were these super cute little goslings.  I was oodling and adoring them when I heard this strange hiss. Mama geese were pissed that I was coming near their babies and started hissing and chasing me.

I ran a lot faster that day.

The toll it took on my atrophied muscles and weak joints, though, was not good.  Post-run, I didn’t feel too bad, but the next day I could barely walk on my knee.  I knew this wasn’t working for me, and I had to figure out an alternate plan.

I was bummed.  Depressed even.  Take note, that was the start of a two-week stretch of rainy weather.  Darker skies at 3 p.m. than all day, black clouds, misery.  I talked myself into staying inside and resting up, and started to forget about the race, settling into the normal comfort of hating myself.

Thankfully, my sister reached out and encouraged me and my outlook changed.  I discovered an app (thanks to her) that has really turned things around for me.  It was the beginning of real change.  More on that next post.