Rebuilding!

I began to write a couple weeks ago about my 180 degree turn on my feelings about my 3 pound gain over September which I spoke about in a my October 7^th update. I had 4 or 5 paragraphs together exploring my terror of regaining The Weight – all 27 pounds of it - and how this small gain could very possibly be a stepping stone to continuing to make excuses until I ended up right back at square one.

Then I made a decision as I came up on the following Friday (for those of you who don’t know, or may not remember – Fridays were always my normal weigh-in day). An odd decision for me in the head space I’d been in regarding my weight... I stepped on the scale before I got dressed for work. Just to see.

It said: 189. Even. My exact “starting” weight at the beginning of September when I began my maintenance “break” period.

When I originally talked about the gain I had said very clearly it could have easily been water retention; I was right. I guess I know my body better than I give myself credit for.

That being said, the panic mode I put myself into got me thinking: I have to stop giving myself permission to eat junk food all the time.

This maintenance cycle was never supposed to be a junk food free-for-all, but I’ve very much treated it that way. All moderation flew out the window and I became terrible at even getting one serving of fruits/vegetables in every day, let alone anything close to FIVE. I was beginning to feel the physical side-effects from my crappy eating habits and was getting sick of feeling like a pile of poo all the time. I decided to commit myself to having healthier meals and snacks immediately. And I’m happy to report that my eating habits over the last 2 weeks or so have improved exponentially. I’m eating what I call “big salads” daily filled with many different types of lettuces as well as baby spinach and an assortment of other veggies. I’m choosing fruits and greek yogurt for snacks, etc. I’m by no means perfect, and there is still some junk food and fast food sprinkled in my diet, but that’s totally okay. I’m getting my fruits and veggies in along with plenty of protein and I can already feel a big difference.

Speaking of commitments; I wrote out a commitment letter to myself regarding exercise/fitness the other day – and even though it is totally dorky, I’m going to share it here:

“Today I renew my commitment to regular, purposeful exercise. I promise to progress, but take things slowly in order to give my body the proper time to recover and readjust to my workouts. I will not push myself so hard or so quickly that I am too sore to complete my next workout and therefore provide myself with an excuse to be sedentary.
 Every little bit counts. 10 push-ups is not “nothing”, nor is 8 squats or 12 sit-ups, etc. Doing one set of exercise will benefit my body more than sitting in front of the television eating ice cream I’m not entirely hungry for.
 I promise not to put pressure on myself to change all my bad habits at one time. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. I promise to remind myself that it will make me feel better both physically and emotionally to do some sort of physical exercise, no matter for how long or at what intensity.”

It’s a little disjointed and all over the place, but you get the basic gist. I think I really screwed myself at the end of September when I pulled the whole “go hard or go home” mentality on myself and pushed myself so hard that I could barely walk for 3 days from the soreness. I could not muster the motivation to get another workout in for that entire week, so I thought it appropriate to promise myself to respect my body’s limits right now, to take things slow with steady progression, and give myself the time to rebuild that base strength before doling out major punishment on my muscles.

So! Here’s what I started on Monday: Starting Strength

It’s basic barbell training at its finest. 5 basic lifts, very similar to Stronglifts 5x5, but with a little more advice on proper form, proper warm-up, and 3x5 working sets vs 5x5. We’ll see how this goes. It’s very simple, very basic, which probably means I’ll get bored pretty fast – but hopefully I can build up some good base strength before that happens. Lord knows how I have a million strength training books, so maybe what I’ll end up doing is just sort of cycling through them every couple months. Nothing wrong with that as long as I get the lifting in, I figure.

Okay, so here are some beginning stats:

10/28/13

• Body fat estimation: 32.8% (nearly a 3% increase in the last couple months – this is not surprising to me at all)
• Weight: 189 lbs
• Neck: 13”
• Bicep flexing: 12”
• Forearm: 9 ¾”
• Wrist: 6 ¼”
• Across bust: 38”
• Under bust: 35”
• Waist: 34.5”
• Navel: 37” (definitely increased in the last couple months – boo!!)
• Hips: 45 ¾” (another increase)
• Thighs: 26.5” (yet another)
• Calf: 15” (…aaaaaaand another)

And here are some pictures (with a SUPER flattering shot I had my husband take of my back-fat this time):

10/28/2013 - 189lbs / 32.8% estimated body fat

There are also a few other progress pictures from last month on my "progress page" that I don't think I ever mentioned in previous posts, if you want to check those out. I used one of my them for my recent #transformationtuesday post on my Facebook page.

So there you have it. Laying it all out there. As I said, my body fat increase was not surprising since I can totally SEE it on me right now. I’m hoping this will burn off quickly with better eating and regular lifting. This estimate is from an online calculator (actually the average of 3 different calculators), but I am planning to go do a Bod Pod test either sometime in December or January. I’m pretty excited about that!! It’ll be interesting to see where I’m really at with my body composition… here’s hoping it’s better than I think it is and not worse! Ha!

As of right now I will keep my calories at maintenance levels of about 2400/day and perhaps do a cut in the Spring depending on how things go. As of right now I’m pretty much full-blown tracking calories again, but it’s not stressing me out like it was before. I’ll continue with that as long as my stress level with it stays low. If I start getting obsessive again, that’ll be the first thing to go.

Wish me luck!!