Flipping out and finding solace

Okay, I know it’s only been 3 weeks… but I had been eating at maintenance (or doing a “refeed”) from November to the beginning of March, so I’m feeling like a 15-20% cut from TDEE should be leading to SOME weight loss. SOME.

I lost 3 lbs the first week back counting calories, and have proceeded to lose nothing in the last 2 weeks even though I’ve stuck to the same types of foods, the same calorie range, and have increased my activity significantly. I began my first week of #100DaysOfChange doing mostly yoga and dance games on the Wii. My second week I jumped back into lifting and running with a couple of active rest days (ie: yoga).  

W. T. F.

While I do not in any way expect to lose 3lbs a week, I do expect to lose something. Hopefully I’m burning fat. Alllll the fat. And just holding water in my muscles making the scale stagnant.

I took measurements on Saturday, and those are mostly the same as they were a couple months ago. Very, very, slight changes. Like a quarter of an inch or less. I’d post them, except I forgot to write them all down. I’m so smart. I do know my natural waist was down to 32”, but my waist-at-navel and hips haven’t changed which is where I had gained some fat over the winter. I’ll retake this weekend and actually record them this time!

So that’s frustrating. Plus I’ve been really hungry over the last week and have no PMS to blame it on, and this plus the above frustration is leading me to want to say “fuck it” to calorie counting. Again. But I know I’m being incredibly impatient and need to get over myself, so I hope this little vent will get it off my mind and allow me to plug along. Maybe I’ll have another random 3lbs week this week and it’ll all just balance out!

I struggled a little bit on Sunday and Monday this week to get the workout in. I stayed out way too late Saturday night and it set me off on a bit of an emotional tailspin and threatened to push me back into bad habits. Live and learn. Unless it’s a truly special occasion, this girl needs to get her butt home and in bed around midnight. No excuses. I’m feeling much more motivated today and am looking forward to getting home and getting a good, tough workout in followed by a long, hot shower, some tv with Mike, some reading before bed, and asleep by 11:30pm. I can’t wait and I love how my priorities are changing to put me in this headspace.

Now to totally up and change subjects: I said in my last update that I would post progress pictures soon. These were taken mid-February a couple weeks into Female Body Breakthrough before I had my breakdown (see what I did there?) and quit exercising for nearly 2 weeks.

Quite a bit of difference from my January 12^th photos I talked about and posted a couple months ago.

I'm still not close to where I had been around Fall of 2013, but making steps. I can’t say enough about how #100DaysOfChange is, well, changing my life and my perspectives and my goals. I know I just said Sunday and Monday were rough, which they were, and that’s to be expected every now and again – but overall I am absolutely loving choosing something to do for myself every day, taking that picture to prove to myself that it got done, and the love and support I’m getting from my family and friends. Probably the most exciting thing about it though, is the fact that I can feel myself slowly pulling through this depression. There are still bad days/weeks, there are still some moments where I wonder if I’m just becoming numb to the things that stress me out or make me unhappy (I’ve felt this way a lot this week which I think may be stemming mostly from my sleep schedule being disrupted) - but when I get home in the evening and choose the workout I’m going to do for the night, I feel great about that decision and I feel great while I’m doing my chosen activity. I’m in my own special place inside my head. It is my time and my comfort space. I don’t worry about my job or my kids or my chores. I just think about me and how I’m improving my life and my health. It’s really great and I just hope that it will continue to be that for me, and right now I’m going to relish in it and try to ignore the scale.

The Big Quit

I keep promising a real update and then I keep getting distracted by life.

So I already talked to you guys about my #100DaysOfChange that I’m doing with some assistance from my Instagram app, and that is going really, really well. I’ve made lots of changes not only regarding exercise frequency and general fitnessy stuff, but also a lot of general health changes that I am really proud of. Here are just a few of those things:

• Gave up regular consumption of caffeine/ soda with lunch
• Cut waaaaay back on alcohol consumption/stopped drinking wine altogether to help with migraines
• Stopped birth control pills to see if this will help with my migraines
• Increased fruit/veggie intake to include at least one serving with each meal/snack
• Made an effort to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night

And most importantly:

• I quit smoking

I am 16 days in. I had one cigarette last week and it was disgusting, and took a couple drags off of one the other night (I know, I know – DUMB) which was equally disgusting. But 1.5 cigarettes in 16 days is pretty damn good. Both “breakdowns” followed quite a bit of alcohol consumption, so this is just more fuel to not drink heavily. I will also say, though, that hangovers are pretty much non-existent for me since cutting out smoking. Turns out all this time I was having a cigarette hangover and not an alcohol hangover. Bonus!

I did pick up a disposable e-cigarette the other night for those times where I’m having drinks and/or hanging out with smoker friends and get the urge to smoke. But after reading this article (go here) I’m not sure that I’ll be using that very regularly… or at all. As the mother of a 2 year old, I’m not trying to have him get into my purse, bust this thing open, and get nicotine poisoning. No way, Jose. Talk about motivation to just be done with it all. This is it, for sure.

I think I finally realized last week that I no longer define myself by drinking and smoking. Those things don’t make me unique (at all) and definitely don’t define who I am as a person/mother/wife. As I get

closer to my 30th birthday I think I’m sort of coming to grips with mortality (as cliché as that may seem), not just my own but that of the people I love. I’ve been reading a lot about the effect of fat (saturated or otherwise) in the diet, and found I should be much more worried about my smoking habit than my occasional food indulgences when it comes to heart health and avoiding heart disease. For some of you this may seem like a giant “duh” statement, but I think I always downplayed the health effects of smoking to myself. I justified a lot. I feel like I can’t justify any longer. My grandfather’s recent health problems brought a lot of this to the forefront for me, and while things are going really well for him and his healthy is improving, I can soundly say I would like to avoid living through the same experiences in my old age.

With all these health changes also comes a very base hope of: maybe this will make my weight loss easier. Birth control pills can cause weight gain and also make it hard to lose weight due to complicated hormone function, plus smoking increases cortisol production and fat storage due to all the fun chemicals in cigarettes effecting hormone function. Not to mention smoking can increase your risk for depression – which I already deal with.

But speaking of weight loss: Mike made a good point the other day when he said to me, “But you’re not trying to lose weight. This isn’t about weight loss, it’s about getting healthy overall. Weight loss is just a possible pleasant side-effect of all of this.”  That is sort of true. I’ve gone through phases. Right now I’m in more of a “sick of seeing 190-something on the scale” phase, and less of a “I love my body and just want it to be healthy and awesome” phase. While I’m still being smart about how I go about losing weight, I am frustrated to find myself at a 500-800 daily calorie deficit while eating fairly “clean” with absolutely no movement on the scale so far. That’s not even mentioning that daily exercise, and the fact that I’m doing fabulous with my protein intake and mostly avoiding heavily processed carbs. I think I may have to come to grips with the fact that I may achieve the body I want… and still weigh close to 190lbs. And I have to be okay with that. I’m still working on it. I’m seeing big changes in my body composition in the last 20 days, and I imagine that will continue. If I can get rid of the belly fat and feel awesome in my clothes and weigh 190lbs, that’s totally fine, right? Well, it should be. That’s all I’m saying.

Enough focus on (poor) body image for now…

So, yes, I’m super proud of myself for my recent accomplishments. I feel like I’m well on my way to completing my “future self” list, and that’s awesome. 

I'll be posting some progress pictures soon!

Eeep!

Hello Friends/Readers!

I've been slacking off quite a bit on blogging, and I apologize for that. It's been a very busy couple weeks, and I've made a lot of small/subtle but significant changes and I definitely want to tell you all about those! I just need to find a quiet moment and the motivation to sit down and type out my thoughts in a somewhat clear and intelligent way. Hopefully this will be soon!

Tomorrow night I should have the house to myself (well, excluding sleeping children), and I'm planning to take advantage of some of that peace and quiet and put something together for you.

In the meantime, you can get mini-updates on what I'm doing for exercise by following me and my 100 Days of Change on Instagram! Go here: http://instagram.com/prttygirlsonfire

Stay tuned!

Wake Up Calls

I feel like I’ve already had several wake-up calls recently… and they just don’t seem to spur me to change my lifestyle quite as much as I need to/want to. I think part of that is just being incredibly impatient. Obviously I just wrote recently about, y’know, my “food issues” and then, the other night, trying to put on a pair of jeans I hadn’t worn in a couple months that would not button (read: simply do not fit right now) sent me into a complete freak-out and rage and a “MUST COUNT CALORIES! MUST RESTRICT! MUST STARVE! MUST CARDIO QUEEN!”… I would be lying if I said I didn’t still feel these thoughts screaming through my head today. They may even be louder.

The reality is, I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that my clothes aren’t fitting so great anymore. And I don’t look as good in them. Then while poking around iphoto, I looked at these photos from 11/17/13:

and realized, my body doesn’t look anything like that anymore. I’ve packed on a lot of fat in the last 3 months. I’m not really okay with admitting that right now and I’d really appreciate kindness in this area and no I-told-you-so’s, or higher-calorie-doesn’t-work, etc, etc. I’m realizing I’ve been living in a little (a lot-a) bit of a delusion that I could eat whatever I want (read: JUNK JUNK AND MORE JUNK) while inconsistently sort-of-sometimes exercising 2, maybe 3, times a week and maintain my body composition that I had attained over several months of regular strength training and regular low-intensity cardio with occasional high-intensity cardio while eating a reasonable amount of calories from decent foods. That’s not even mentioning that I used to regularly get 9000 steps or more almost daily, whereas the last couple months we’re looking at an average that’s closer to 5000-6000. I was thinking I had been maintaining, but my recent monthly report from FitBit screamed showed otherwise. I’m sure a lot of this has to do with winter and all the mood altering that comes with it (for me), plus the obviously colder weather and shorter days that don’t lend much opportunity for outdoor enjoyment/walks/runs. I’d really like to think that over this spring/summer I can build up a good routine of walks/runs that can carry me into and through next winter.

Another recent wake-up call? My recent blood work panel done at my check-up last month. While most my numbers were well within “normal” or “good” ranges, there was one that was slightly worrisome: my triglycerides. They were slightly elevated at 173. My doctor would like them to be under 150. Now, according to who you talk to, some doctors believe anything under 200 is no cause for concern (especially if you're young), and then others (like my doctor) believe that they should really remain between 100-150. What have I been doing to try to improve this number? Absolutely nothing. What am I doing instead? Pretending like I’m still 20 and don’t have to worry about that shit. Where is it getting me? Absolutely nowhere and causing sneaky anxiety about aging and coming to grips with my own mortality.

I mean, shoot, all I have to do to bring this number down is a) quit smoking, b) quit drinking, and c) rarely eat any processed carbs.

IT’S SO SIMPLE!

So, yes, I spent the last weeks since my doctor's appointment pretty much ignoring that I need to work on some habits for my health. But, hey, baby steps. My first baby step was deciding I would commit myself to 100 Days of Change. And my change would be doing some sort of purposeful physical activity every day for 100 days. So far so good. I did miss one day due to just plain forgetfulness, but otherwise I've posted a picture to my instagram account every day documenting whatever it is I'm making time for that day.

The second step was another amazing burst of motivation a few days ago to start really focusing on better food choices. I began logging food again, but not for calorie purposes - to track how junk vs non-junk I'm eating every day. I also changed my food diary settings to "private" so that the only judgement I have to worry about right now is from myself. Once I feel more confident in my choices and feel my food issues are under control, I'll make my diary public again. I've been focusing mostly on eating a fruit and/or a veggie every time I eat and increasing my consumption of greens and fish over meat overall.

I'm feeling really good about these decisions, and feeling really free from all those "shoulds" that usually surround my exercise routines/plan. I've done something a little different nearly every day, and I think that's been really beneficial to me and the way I think sometimes. It's allowed me to revisit some old favorites, as well as stalk around the internet and find some new things to try out. The "every day" thing is also a great motivator as it doesn't give me a chance to decide I need an "extra" rest day and then fall out of good habits. I've never been the person to break up my strength into different areas of focus (leg day, upper-body day, abs day, etc.), but I'm thinking in the future that might be really good for me to keep me on track and focused.

But right now? I'm not thinking about it other than to say to myself, "You'll be doing something active today." No obsession, no special schedule, no "THIS routine will be so much better", no bullshit. Just moving my body on a daily basis.


Interested in joining me in my 100 Days of Change? Follow me on Instagram and use the tag #100daysofchange! :)

What am I going to do with myself?

I sure as hell don’t know.

I’ve been continually weighing myself on Friday and/or Sunday mornings (depending on when I did my last workout... assuming that I did ANY working out) since the beginning of 2014. Where has this gotten me? Absolutely nowhere other than having a bunch of Fat & Ugly attacks.  

Obviously I’ve really been struggling with consistency. I also began to realize recently that there were some pretty serious control issues going on when it came to food – only not in the way of “I’m restricting too much” or “I’m binging all the time”, but more in a just-stressing-too-much-in-general kind of way. Constantly worrying, “Is this enough? Is this too much? Is this right? I shouldn’t have eaten that… I shouldn’t have had that beer…” and on and on and on and on to the point where I was driving myself crazy and getting anxiety. I was projecting this image/attitude of Everything In Moderation, but really I was flipping out about food and feeling guilty all the time.

So I quit counting calories. I wanted to pay more attention to my hunger cues instead of eating when I was “supposed to”. I have good days and I have bad. Some days I screw my hunger cues up by doing stuff like eating something when I’m not actually hungry for it, because I made it and it’s there and if I don’t eat it it’ll just “go to waste”. And other days I screw myself up by ignoring my hunger cues – I’m sure we’ve all heard the story about Mike’s birthday weekend more than we wanted to by now... Basically, I’m still getting used to this whole thing. But overall I like it much better than counting every piece of food and every sip of beverage I put in my mouth all day long everyday and then obsessing about whether or not I “should” have consumed that particular item.

Back to the scale issue: I’ve been weighing myself. A lot. More than I probably have in over a year. It’s not doing me any good, it’s making me crazy. I’m also taking other measurements, but those aren’t doing much changing due to a) my less-than-stellar food choices, and b) my lack of consistency with any type of exercise. I've been desperate to get to that commitment place, to find whatever it is that motivates me and hold that. I'd like to start meal planning AND prepping. Especially for lunches. Breakfast and dinner, I generally do pretty well with. I’m at probably 80 or 90% with smart choices when it comes to breakfast and dinner. Lunch? Not so much. Not at all. And seeing as I’ve been stalled in this same place for 14 months, and have had the same lunch diet (and weekend diet) for that whole 14 months – I’m thinking that’s where a big part of my plateau issue lies.

Okay, so the scale is a problem, my lunch-food and most weekend-food choices are a problem… and then let’s get down to the bigger/biggest problem when it comes to my mental health: I up and quit exercising for almost 2 weeks. I believe it was something like 11 days, to be exact. I pitched that fit about FBB taking too long and how I had really fatigued myself by treating my body like crap and blah blah blah and so I just quit. I was still getting steps in, yes, I was still spending my usual time cleaning like a mad woman on the weekends (talk about some cardio! Mopping is some legit cardio!), yes. But I wasn’t getting that exercise “high” that keeps me from going to a dark place. And to the dark place I started going. Almost immediately. I have so many notes for my next appointment with my therapist, it’s bordering on… well, actually looking like therapy is a good thing for me at this time. Ha!

But then something happened to me on Monday. We got a bunch of snow here in Virginia on top of some lovely ice, and so work was closed Monday. Because it was frigid, the kids were cooped up in the house all day. We were all going a little nuts. I encouraged Mike to go take a nap since he was being tired and grumpy, so I’m goofing off with the kids and… motivation hit me. With the toddler awake, I couldn’t exactly just disappear to the basement for an hour so I just decided to suck it up and stick a DVD on the living room TV. I went for an oldie, but a goody – one of my Jackie Warner workouts. It was 30 minutes. Yes, it was a little boring. Yes, it was more bicep focused than I felt necessary… but it was SOMETHING. And it felt GOOD.

I recently got on this Instagram kick (shameless plug: GO FOLLOW ME HERE!), and had remembered reading about this 100 day commitment dealie recently… so I decided I’d take a picture and/or video of myself doing some sort of exercise every day for 100 days, starting Monday. So after I finished that Jackie workout, I snapped a silly photo of me holding the DVD case and posted it. What’s funny is that even though I only have like 2 followers on Instagram – I feel committed to doing it. Last night I didn’t feel like doing anything but sitting on my butt and watching True Detective. But I couldn’t wuss out on day 2! I needed to post my photo!! So I did some 15 minute power yoga. 15 minutes is better than nothing. 15 minutes still counts. My heart-rate was elevated, and the relaxation at the end was just what I needed. …and oddly enough, I’m still super sore from the Jackie workout on Monday.

I have no real “plan” for this. Just to do something over the next 100 days. I am going to need the weather to warm up at some point, since that 5k is happening in 5 weeks and I haven’t run since Feb 19^th. Which was a pitiful run – and that’s if I’m being kind to myself. I’d ideally like to run 3 times a week for at least 4 weeks before the race.

DO YOU HEAR THAT, MOTHER NATURE?!? You have roughly 9 days to get your shit together!!

Other than all of that, I’ve been battling both of my children on a regular basis, trying to convince myself that I like my job, trying to carve out more quiet time for just myself sans guilt, have actually played my guitar TWICE in the last couple weeks, and am trying to keep my head above water in everyday life while avoiding using alcohol to self-medicate. I think drinking more than almost anything else may actually be what’s spurning my recent depressive episodes. I’m still in the “testing” phases on that one, though. More on that later.

Hoping to knock out several posts over the next week, so stay tuned!