Regularly Scheduled Programming

I went through some serious mental shifts and changes about certain things over the weekend that have led me back around to putting together a regular training schedule and recalculating calories.

My FitBit bit the dust last week. I still haven’t been able to figure out what the deal is (and I still haven’t emailed customer service to see if they’ll replace it – for free). I spent 2 days using Argus, but the battery drain on my phone became too much of a hassle for me. So right now I am fitness tracker free!  It’s weird and is taking some getting used to. I’m finding it difficult to stay in the mindset that uncounted steps are still steps and still count toward total daily energy expenditure!

Okay, so no fitness tracker... and THEN, I pitched a fit and didn’t count calories over the weekend. Stepping on the scale Saturday morning to see “195” glaring back at me pissed me off. Logically I know that my junk-food-Friday (within calorie goals and macros, though – IIFYM my ass) had everything to do with it (high sodium = water retention), but I threw a temper tantrum over it anyway. I ate plenty of fruits and veggies (and 7-layer dip) over the weekend, and didn’t give totally over to that voice in my head telling me to eat all the candy/chips/ice cream because uncounted calories don’t count… and then last night I decided, well, maybe I should just run my numbers using a TDEE calculator online suggested by the EM2WL community and go by that for a bit. So I did. New goal: 2250, no eating back exercise calories. So don't be surprised when you see all those "1" calorie burns coming through from MyFitnessPal.

Now, of course, I’ve picked a terrible time to do all this since we leave for Disney in about 2 weeks – and those 8 days of travel will completely throw everything out of whack. While I know we’ll be doing a TON of walking down there, it’ll obviously be a rest-week from any strength training (outside of hauling Nolan around) since we’ll be super busy and probably exhausted. I'm getting a little concerned that we may end up feeling like we need a vacation from our vacation! But I'm excited nonetheless. :)

So the program that I'm following is specifically geared toward fat loss, which is really what I need most in my life right now. I got a lot of my tips from GirlsGoneStrong.com, as I love, love, love Molly Galbraith and Jen Sinkler! For next several weeks (except Disney), I'll be doing straight strength training 3 days a week, Metabolic Resistance Training (MRT) 2 days a week (I'm choosing to do these after my arm/leg workouts, but they can be done on separate days), and 2 days of Moderate Intensity Cardio (MIC - keeping heart rate between 120-150bpm for 30 minutes). The schedule I have set up right now is for Monday-Friday, or taking Thursdays and Sundays off. I'll probably bounce back and forth depending on what's going on in life.

It would seem that this schedule might interfere a bit with the purpose behind #100daysofchange, since the point of that was to do something physically active every day. Well, I've already thought of that, and I've been making so many changes in my life outside of physical activity. On my "off" days I'll take a leisurely walk, maybe talk about a healthy meal choice, or do something good for my mental health (yoga, meditation, journal, or garden, for example). I end up doing this a few times a week anyway just because sometimes life gets busy, so nothing will really be all that different - and most of those things are physically active anyhoo.

I started the program last night and got some arms and MRT in. Today was supposed to be my moderate cardio, but the weather is completely screwing me over there. It's only 46 degrees right now. What the hell?! AND rainy. I'll probably play some Just Dance on the Wii... or run circles with my toddler playing "monster". Either will do.

I just need to remind myself that consistency is important (especially with diet), and start looking at things in a long-term perspective (where will I be in a year? What about when I'm 40?) and working toward goals that will benefit me in 20 years just as well as they're benefiting me today.

Mental Importance

I touched a little bit in my 50 Days update on the importance of cardio (walking/running) and maintaining my mental health. I want to go a little deeper into it.

My motivation and energy have been really low this week and last, and I’m kind of teetering on the fine-line between Worn Out and Depressed. Stress has been very, very high for me the last two weeks and I’m having a hard time managing it. Getting a run in probably would have helped me immensely in this area, but our weather has been a little wonky here in Virginia and I’ve used that as an excuse big time. Not to mention, the 5k really, really wiped me out and the last thing I wanted to do last week was run. I’ve been wondering if I’m maybe in a bit of an overtraining cycle, which with my current stress level wouldn’t be difficult at all to have reached. This could explain my random weight gain despite good nutrition/plenty of exercise, my interrupted sleep, and recent exhaustion no matter how long I’m in bed.  

This week, thanks to work issues, rain, and crazy wind, I didn’t get ANY walks in until yesterday. I’ve come to realize how vital these lunch break walks are in keeping me from murdering people during the workweek. I also ran a couple miles last night. Well, “ran”, intervals really. Mostly walking. I’ve been reading a lot more about heart rate training recently, and tried to focus mostly on proper recovery from my “high” intervals - which sometimes meant walking longer than I would have liked. I still finished the 2.3 in 30 minutes, so it wasn’t a terrible pace, and if I keep it up I’ll get better/faster and able to recover more quickly. On a bummer note: my shins are bothering me a bit this morning even though I did my shin-specific stretches post-run. On a positive note: I felt much happier last night and today (so far) than I have since my 5k. Anecdotal evidence (y'know, and a crap ton of scientific evidence, too) shows that walking and running help elevate my mood and regulate my depression, anxiety, and stress. Now, if only I can convince myself how important this is come November when the weather gets frigid... perhaps I should go ahead and start saving for a 6 month pass to the local rec center's gym? Or for my very own treadmill?


This week was supposed to be my big “return” to strength training, but I’ve been flailing a little bit. This is not to say I haven’t been working out, I definitely have. But I am kind of all over the place and haven’t really put together a program to work on yet. I’ve also realized recently that I should really put some focus on making sure my form is correct before adding any heavy weight (duh moment, I know), and this might mean a few weeks of bodyweight training. This is where my lack of patience kills me. I really need to maintain focus on long-term goals and quit being so "right now" with everything. Something to work on, for sure.

I feel like I have a lot of reevaluating to do over the next few weeks regarding how I want to move forward after #100daysofchange is over. I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s seemed to work for me as far as fat/weight loss in the past, and I’m wondering if it might be beneficial to give some things another shot and see what happens. I’ve been having a tendency to get caught up in this whole idea that just because I’m 30 now, all of a sudden my entire biological landscape has changed – but clearly it hasn’t. That shit doesn’t just happen overnight.But it will change over the next 10 years, dramatically, and I need to create and cement good habits now in order to maintain my health for, well, the rest of my life.

Cement good habits and... stop over-thinking everything. I get so caught up and I think sometimes I create additional stress for myself, which does not help me in my training/fitness goals in any way, shape, or form. Something that is probably going to help me with chilling out: my FitBit up and dying last night. That’s right. I just charged it a few days ago, but before bed last night I realized it wasn’t lighting up anymore. I went and stuck it on the charger… nothing. I cleaned the connectors, nothing. I did a hard reset -- 2 quick flashes showing full battery power, then nothing. This morning I couldn’t even get it to reset. It’s dead. I’m not sure how I want to proceed… I can’t afford to replace it right now. Our home HVAC is being replaced next week, and that is obviously not cheap. A new FitBit seems like a bit of a frivolous expense. I downloaded the free app, Argus, to my iPhone as a replacement. I’ll see how I like it. So far it’s draining my battery pretty awesomely, but I might be able to live with that… maybe.

I probably shouldn’t have downloaded Argus. I probably should have just been free from a fitness tracker for a while to just see what happens. (Magic! Maybe magic would happen!) But then the other part of me is like, “I’m gonna be in Disney world next month, and I want those 40 BAJILLION steps counted, damnit!”

Y’know, because if technology isn’t tracking how many steps you’re taking… then clearly you haven’t taken any steps.

Hey, I don’t pretend to understand my own distorted logic.

The last couple days I’ve stopped logging calories throughout the day (again). Before bed I put everything in and see where I am, but mostly I’m just eating as I feel I need to. I’m trying really, really hard not to slip into the mindset of: If I’m not counting calories, calories aren’t really being eaten and I can eat ALL THE JUNK FOOD.

Are we noticing a trend here? If steps aren’t tracked they aren’t happening… if calories aren’t tracked then they aren’t really consumed…

It’s hard being me.

50 days in and so many changes!

So, here I am at the 50 day mark, halfway through my #100daysofchange! The biggest thing I’ve gained from this experiment so far definitely has to be the improvement in my attitude and mood. There have still be been bad days, but they are becoming few and far between.

In the last 50 days I have:

Done some form of exercise/physical activity every day

Made an effort to sleep at 7-8 hours every night

Quit smoking

Cut back drinking

Stopped drinking caffeine

Stopped taking birth control in order to regulate mood and get rid of increased migraine frequency

Inadvertently started spending more time at home with my husband and children

Started playing guitar/writing music again

I haven’t had a migraine in weeks. I have only “broken” and smoked 2 cigarettes since March 8^th. I will use an e-cigarette on the weekends when I’m drinking, but even that I find myself using less and less. Sometimes it’s enough just to hold it. I found a major, major, MAJOR connection between sleep and alcohol intake with how depressed I am/was. If I sleep at least 6.5 hours, I’m okay. Anything less than that and I feel really depressed for 2 or 3 days. Similarly, if I drink 4 beers or less, I’m okay. Anything more than that and I feel really depressed for the next day or two. COMBINE lots of alcohol and less than 6.5 hours of sleep? We’re looking at a whole week of feeling pretty severely depressed and the desire to slip back into bad habits.

I think quitting caffeine has helped with my migraines quite a bit, and going off birth control may be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for my physical and mental health. And, no, I’m not trying to have another baby. Various other forms of birth control are being used CONSISTENTLY, and I’m tracking my basal temp and cycles in order to avoid high fertility days completely. While I think recognizing how important sleep is when it comes to my mood, the lack of faux hormones has also had a big impact. I feel more in control of my emotions overall. This could all be psychosomatic, but I’ll take it regardless.

So far I’m really enjoying this journey. I still haven’t found my “thing” when it comes to diet/fitness and that equaling weight loss, but I think I’m starting to realize that shouldn’t even be my focus in this whole experience. I recently have been questioning myself regularly regarding my feelings of disappointment on the scale not moving (or not moving in the direction I want it to). Do I enjoy the exercise I choose to do? Yes. Does it make me feel good to eat more things like fish and veggies? Yes, absolutely. Do I feel comfortable in my body and the clothes I choose to wear? For the most part. I still have “trouble areas” that I feel negatively about, and I still have days that are filled with Fat & Ugly attacks, but overall I feel okay with how I look. So if I’m happy, healthy, and comfortable – why should weight loss even be an issue? I don’t know the answer to that right now. “Because I want the scale to reflect my hard work” comes to mind, but the scale is a terrible judge of how hard someone is working to improve their overall physical and mental health. This is one of those pieces of information that I know to be true and yet still have a hard time believing for whatever reason.

So I still struggle with scale-weight, and I still struggle with calorie tracking. These past two weeks I’ve been wanting to jump back on the quit-calorie-tracking train. It’s starting to really stress me out again. I put myself in a 400 calorie deficit from what I found to be my maintenance number and I’ve upped my exercise significantly. I initially lost a few pounds, but now I’ve gained those back. A couple people suggested that since I increased my exercise (and therefore TDEE), I might need to be eating more. WHO KNOWS?! I try to following what my FitBit shows, especially on high activity days, but I just don’t really know what my true TDEE is. These are all estimates. So, it could be WAY higher, or WAY lower. Although I think if it were too much lower I’d be gaining a lot more weight than just a few pounds over the course of 2 months… It’s such a pain in the butt, and this is why I sometimes feel like I need to just leave it alone. My most successful adult weight loss came from doing strength training regularly (though lazily – not pushing myself or upping weight, etc.), slacking on cardio, not counting calories but eating most my meals at home (and mostly packaged, at that), and indulging in beer and bar food 2 or 3 times a week. Go figure. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s like I need to unlearn all these things I’ve educated myself on in the last year or more. So I’m a little stuck there.

Overall I’m really proud of how far I’ve come in my lifestyle changes in the last 50 days, but there are obviously still things I struggle with and things that I still need to work on.

Enjoy some (slightly blurry) progress photos from April 13th:

Here’s to the next 50 days!

Shorty

I worked on an update all week last week, then work and life kept getting in the way of my finishing it and posting it. It mostly talked about my shin splints that came out of nowhere – which, for any of you who are following my #100daysofchange on Instagram, I’ve been whining about quite a bit.So here's a short update:

I attempted to run last Tuesday, and it was painful and just… bad. I had a total meltdown over the whole thing, feeling like there was no way I would be able to run any of my 5k, that I had just wasted my money by pushing my mileage too quickly, etc. I got pretty down on myself and it was a rough couple days. I decided to just walk for the rest of the week, do some stretches/exercise I found on runnersworld.com, and hope for the best.

It worked!

I was able to run the 5k yesterday without incident - and not only that, but it was my best time yet! I ran the first full mile without stopping to walk, and I don't think I've ever been able to do that. My dad (who is 54, btw, and hasn't run regularly in a year or more) totally kicked my butt. His official chip time was 36:42, and mine was 40:54. (I originally remembered it as 40:10, but was obviously mistaken!) My original goal was to come in under 40 minutes, but I'm pretty proud of this time. I really enjoyed myself and really enjoyed the setting of this run (check it out: www.prisonbreakdash.com). I think I will definitely do it again next year! I'm thinking about doing another 5k in May, just for funsies. We'll see. Right now I'm happy I accomplished this, and I'm looking forward to moving my focus back to strength training for a while.

My rocky relationship with running and the fat on my body

At some point last summer I started running. I don’t know why. I’ve always kind of hated running. I would run every once in a while as a teenager, just because that’s what people did to stay in shape, right? My mom and dad have always been big recreational runners. My mom used to get up at 5am everyday to run when I was little bitty. That and Jane Fonda aerobic videos was how she lost her pregnancy weight after I was born. My dad still runs on-and-off throughout the year for weight loss/maintenance, but also because it’s a mental release for him. He’s always told me he does his best thinking on a run and feels so much better emotionally after running. Throughout my running experience I’d regularly been plagued with shin splints and similar injuries, plus I never really experienced the “runners high” probably because I was very active in my everyday life anyway and was just “high on life” most of the time. Essentially there was not much that drew me to it other than a great-big Fat-And-Ugly Attack. Then I’d throw some sneakers on and go run a couple miles and feel like I did something healthy for myself.

My experience with running last year was very different. I invested in some good shoes, took it easy, and learned to run more on the balls of my feet and less slamming my heal into the ground to avoid the shin splints I’d regularly suffered. I did mostly intervals on my runs as I was dabbling in the “Primal” way of exercising at the time, but realized very quickly that sometimes I just really enjoyed a steady-state run for a little while. It was my time to be alone with my thoughts (and my music), and I understood for the first time in my life what my dad meant when he talked about that mental release during a run. I guess maybe that is similar to the “runners high”. It definitely boosted my mood, as well. Considering the depression I was/am currently battling, this was/is obviously a great side effect.

While I didn’t run regularly (or at all, really) over the winter thanks to the Polar Vortex, I definitely missed it a lot. I signed up for my first 5K a couple months ago (as most of you regular readers know), and since the weather has started to thaw out a bit I’ve been trying to get out at least twice a week in prep for my race. But what I realized last night is: running is making me feel my age. I can feel all the aches and pains in my joints that I never experienced in my 2+ years of on-and-off weight lifting. And I don’t think I like that.

(Full disclosure: I did experience some lower back pain over the winter due to poor squat form, but once I corrected my form the pain quickly subsided.)

Another thing I don’t particularly like is feeling the fat on my body jiggle around when I’m running… which is something I’ve noticed more of lately. Special thanks to those fat stores I put on over the winter while slacking on my diet and my exercise… A friend posted on Facebook yesterday about being frustrated with what she called “saddle bags” – but essentially she just meant having hips much larger than your top, making it hard to find or make clothing that fits properly. This term must have gotten stuck in my brain, because last night as I was getting in the shower, I started noticing that I have actual saddle bags; these really not-fun little fatty pockets on my hips that I’d never really noticed (or chose to ignore) before. Some of you may be thinking, “WHAA?! No! LIES!”, but they’re incredibly easy to disguise by simply wearing some kind of clothing! So of course you wouldn’t have ever noticed them in the photos I post here, or even in real life if you saw me – because I’m generally not nude. But what I also noticed is that I’m starting to slim up and firm up everywhere except where I most need/want to, which of course is my lower belly/hip area. These are always the last fat stores to go – especially in women of child-bearing age. Whomp, whomp. But there IS progress happening.

I keep thinking to myself, “Self, just commit to your strength training and HIIT and be a little smarter with your food choices – the fat will burn off.” And just about every weekend I think to myself, “Starting this week I’m going to avoid processed food and be really on point with my diet.” – and then I’m not. But I also realized that eating for my training is much like my wanting to quit smoking or wanting to get more sleep at night; I wanted and “tried” to do these things for several years, but it really just didn’t click for me until this year. “Dieting down” may not click for me for a while longer, and really the most disappointing part of that is I will have to purchase shorts in a larger size for this summer. I’m trying really hard not to let that push me into a deep depression, because it’s really nothing worth being depressed over right now. I’m on the right track. I need to just let this serve as reminder to keep on top of my diet/exercise moving forward, and not give myself a 3-4 month “break”. I honestly think the largest part of this equation is going to be returning my focus to lifting and move away from steady-state cardio. Last spring/early summer I was exercising less than 3-4 times a week, doing minimal cardio, and lifting lots of weights – this seemed to agree with my body, although it was around the same time that I started falling into a really deep depression. I think once I wrap this 5k, my runs will be strictly for fun/mental health, mostly intervals, and mostly short distance. This will better benefit my strength training and fat loss while still offering me the mental health benefits of a run.