I'm a lying liar!

I'm sure most of you probably anticipated this.... but: my venture into sobriety lasted all of 48 hours. After a lengthy talk with my husband Friday night (about many different things, not just the drinking thing), he at one point said, "Why are you doing this? I'm sorry if this is rude, but I think it's dumb. It's a total overreaction to one night." At first I was all, "Are you enabling me?!?!", but then quickly realized Mike isn't one to enable anyone about anything and if he truly thought I had "issues" with my alcohol consumption he would have told me a long time ago. He made a good point in that I over-drank, I drove when I didn't have any business driving, and it scared the shit out of me. That's not my norm. I don't get wasted and get behind the wheel. Clearly bad decisions were made and I'm lucky that I didn't hurt myself or anyone else. But Mike made the point that I'm totally capable of limiting my intake when I choose, that I rarely drink to get drunk, and that this "challenge" read more like self-punishment than self-improvement. 

That really rang with me. That's exactly what this was. This wasn't going to make me a happier, healthier person. It was just another thing to torture myself over, to be miserable about. It was dumb. It was dumb because I was lying to myself (and you) about the reason behind it.

So I dropped it. I’m dropping it. I had a few drinks Saturday night. It was fine. I didn’t drink to excess, I didn’t drink to be drunk, it didn’t make it any harder to get out of bed the next morning. I didn’t feel the need to have any more than what I had. I didn’t feel the need to drink again Sunday night. It just was what it was. And it was fine.

I’m a lying liar and I’m not going to quit alcohol for 30 days. I am going to be conscious of using alcohol to self-medicate and be sure to set hard limits for myself if I must drive. If I feel like I’m drinking because I don’t want to feel feelings anymore, well, that’s probably a good night not to drink.

Now, back to our regularly schedule programming: 

I recently returned to two old frenemies, MyFitnessPal and FitBit, for a daily dose of reality. I haven’t done any type of strength training in over a month and my adventures in cardio lack consistency. What’s left? Diet and steps. So I’m tracking it all again. I had gained weight. (Imagine that. Drinking tons of beer and eating whatever the fuck you want while not maintaining a decent exercise routine leads to weight gain. Who would have thought.) Not a ton of weight, but roughly 4 pounds. Clothing still fits the same, measurements are roughly the same, but I’m a little mushier than I was and would like to be.

Okay, let’s be honest: I’ve been a little mushier than I want to be for a while now. And while it’s excellent that I’ve had weeks and sometimes months of feeling really honestly good about myself as a person and the body that person lives in, it all eventually comes back around to feeling like I'm too heavy. And sometimes too big. And really none of that can change without a diet overhaul. And it's easy to eat a bunch of junk all the time when it's not staring you in the face in the form of a food journal.

As I spoke about in last week's utterly depressing update, I've had very little interest in food lately. This (bright-side) has made it relatively easy to make healthy choices since I have zero fucks to give about what I eat since nothing tastes delicious or happy these days. ...not that food should taste "happy"... but... "worth it", I guess. Except Oreos. Oreos always taste worth it. And other cookies... and ice creams... but I just try not to keep too much of that around lately. I've been living off a lot of Greek yogurt, fruit, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, giant salads, homemade vinaigrette, and salmon. Lately it's been very easy for me to under-eat, and I get hungry... but nothing really seems appetizing. Or I can't possibly be bothered to cook or fix myself something because sitting on the couch staring into space feeling sorry for myself is just so much more fun. The above list are all things that are quick and easy for me to make and therefore motivate to eat. Bonus that most of them are healthy.

So, I'm tracking calories/food journaling again and I received my replacement FitBit about 10 days ago and have once again returned to loyally wearing it day in and day out. So far I have yet to become completely obsessed with my step count and have not yet allowed that step count to determine how I feel about myself and my life. Key word here is "yet". I hope I can keep a healthy mindset about it and allow it to do its job in assisting me in my getting healthy process without taking over my every thought and feeling.

Lately I find myself wanting to schedule changes. "I'm going to quit drinking for 30 days!" (lies and fibs), "I'm going to get up and run every morning!" (so far, not happening) "I'm going to sit down and write a whole album's worth of new songs in a week!" "I'm gonna keep a notebook with me and write down positive thoughts everyday!" "I'm going to schedule lots of events to keep myself busy and distracted from hating life so much!"

While my intentions are really good on all this stuff, I also know this is a guaranteed way to make me feel horrible about myself. That's a lot of stuff. And realistically, I will probably only accomplish maybe one or two of those things (or none at all), and then feel like garbage for not doing everything I set out to do in whatever imaginary time-frame I've given myself to do them. (I don't have a time-frame for most of those things, but that doesn't mean I won't feel like I've failed them 4 days from now when I haven't done any of them -- or even a year from now, for that matter, having accomplish 2 or 3 of them.)

I'd like to think I'm trying to take my #365daysofchange challenge seriously by coming up with these accomplishments and activities I've set/scheduled for myself, but it doesn't come from that rational place - it comes from a distraction place. If I can't be happy or "live in the now" or rediscover my joy, then I'm sure as shit going to just keep myself so busy with social activities and "projects" that I don't have time to think about the fact that nothing is fun or exciting anymore. Instead I can just be focused on being busy and stressed out!! Because that's healthy!!

Anyways... so, bonus, I did realize I exercised every weekday last week. I ran Monday, tennised Tuesday, took a good walk Wednesday, ran again Thursday night, with another good walk Friday. I keep thinking to myself, "Maybe you should go down to the basement and lift some of those heavy iron things..." and then I'm like, "Nah, I'm good." I don't know what my deal is there. I've always loved strength training, but for some reason I've got it in my head lately that it "betrayed" me somehow. I'm sure that is partially a scale-weight response. It's also easier to blame the strength training than to blame myself for the inconsistency. I'm sure as the weather gets cooler and the daylight hours shorter (I'll talk more about that in a moment, too), I'll find myself gravitating less and less to my outdoor runs and more and more to the warm confines of my basement and the weights that live there. Right now I want to focus on consistent runs (if for nothing more than the mental health benefits), and consistent diet/calorie deficit.

I haven't done this in a long time, but here are my current stats:
Weight: 195 lbs on 8/2/14
Bicep (flexed): 12"
Bust: 38"
Under bust: 34"
Natural waist: 33"
Waist at navel: 37"
Hips: 44.5"
Thighs: 26"

And photos:

It is almost mind-boggling how quickly I pack on fat. These photos are a major departure from where I was at the end of my 100 day challenge, merely two months ago. Granted the lighting was more flattering from my 100th day, but I have the outtakes from those photos and even the "bad" ones are better than these.

I'm sick of being in the 190s. If I'm not going to increase muscle mass, I need to be closer to the 170s. That's just all there is to it. Pushing my body out of this set point is gonna be tough since I've been maintaining at this weight and general fat percentage level for a while. I'm hoping getting back to basics will get it done, but it may take a while to figure it all out. And some serious dietary discipline on my part.

My main concern at this time, however...  I mean, I don't know if y'all know or not, but winter is coming. And I don't mean that as a Game of Thrones reference, I mean it quite literally. We are just a handful of weeks away from the return to hoodie weather and 6pm sunsets. And I can.not.deal. I'm terrified and am having increased anxiety over the approach of fall and winter. It didn't even get warm here until June. And we've had maybe two weeks' worth of actual hot weather. All and all it's been a pretty mild summer, as my a/c bills can attest. This is a bunch of malarkey. Summer should be hot. And winter snow storms should not linger into April... much as low temperatures of 30s and 40s should not linger on into June. Not in Virginia. In Maine? Wisconsin? Winnipeg? Sure. Not here. No siree, Bob! ...moving to Florida is looking more and more appealing.

Conflicting Feelings

This past weekend I flew down to Little Rock to celebrate my other grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary and spend time with friends and family. I had a great time!

So, while the weekend was lots of fun, I am feeling weird about indulging my vices unashamedly the entire trip. I feel a little guilty now, after-the-fact, for the copious amount of beer consumed, the ridiculously late nights out with my cousins and friends, the amount of sugar/refined carbs eaten, and the few cigarettes that were smoked.

Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic. Maybe these feelings are all just the side-effect of too much alcohol and too little sleep, which we all know puts me in a speedy depression cycle. But, really, the bottom line is: there are a lot of things about myself physically, mentally, and emotionally that I still want to change. That still need to change. And I'm starting to wonder how much longer it's going to take me to get there. Time is flying by faster than ever and I feel like I'll quickly run out of "quick fixes" as I age. 30 is still young, but I'm not going to fool myself and act like I have "all the time in the world" to create good habits in place of bad ones or that my metabolism will just magically function the same way for the rest of my life allowing me to "decide" at any time to go ahead and lose the weight, shed the fat, build the muscle, etc.

I've been thinking a lot on changing my diet the last couple weeks. I feel like I eat fairly well most of the time, and there's not really a whole lot wrong with eating/drinking junk while on a vacation or a trip, but I think sometimes I lie to myself about how well I really eat overall... and I'm now having a bit of an epiphany about my expectations for weight/fat loss while I continue to make iffy diet choices on the regular. I'm sure some of you are sitting there thinking, "Well, DUH, Jess." And, honestly, this is something I've known in the back of head for a very long time now - but sometimes it just takes a while to admit something to yourself. Nobody likes to be wrong. But there were some realizations made when it came to food/beverage choices, and one of them was a little terrifying as I realized how wonky I felt after eating a carb-heavy dinner followed by a large amount of dessert on top having been sipping on lemonade all day. Part of me wonders if I might be pre-diabetic. I'm supposed to go back to my doc this summer to have my triglycerides rechecked, and I think I probably need to go ahead and request a glucose test, too. While I think some of this wonky feeling was just in response to heat and exhaustion (the a/c was broken in the room where the anniversary celebration was held, it was 100 degrees outside, plus I'd played nearly 2 hours of tennis, followed by a run, followed by lying in the sun poolside for a few hours before heading to the dinner celebrations), it certainly can't hurt to be proactive on this front.

In regards to this diet stuff, part of me is still really drawn to the idea of Paleo/Primal, but I also know that it's too restrictive for me to maintain and that could very well end up in a breakdown/quit-everything cycle and derail a lot of progress. I don't want to yo-yo. I want something sustainable. The obvious choice would be to just, y'know, eat sensibly. Eat mostly leafy greens, vegetables, and lean proteins. As I've discussed at intervals for the last almost 2 years, I need to learn how to commit. To make and keep the promise to myself. I'm just not very good at it. I was so excited for #100daysofchange to completely change my life. I mean, that was over 3 months of doing something for my health everyday. And, yet, here I am only a month out (I can't believe it's only been a month - it feels like much longer), and I've completely started slacking off on my "commitment" to doing #365daysofchange. I feel like I've quit holding myself accountable and am almost ready to give in and stop doing it altogether! Except that I know that certainly won't get me where I want to be.

I guess I just still haven't found something that really resonates with me. Aside from diet, exercise has dropped waaay down on my priority list. Spending time with Mike and the kids and sleep have become top priorities, and sometimes I feel like I can't do a workout and get adequate time with my family AND get a good night's sleep all at the same time. This isn't true, but it feels that way right now. I've wanted to try to get my workouts done in the mornings for a few years now, but that's kind of gone down much like I wanted to quit smoking for like 5 years and was only able to actually make myself do so 4 months ago. i.e.: it's not happening for me at this time. So maybe in 5 years, when my kids are older and require less time/energy, I'll actually be able to be that person that does the 6am workout every day without it making me hate life.

...or maybe it'll just get a little easier to get in the evening workout. Whichever.

Really what it all boils down to right now is that I'm being really down on myself and instead of using that frustration to push myself to do something, anything to get back on track with diet/exercise, I'm instead just wallowing in self-pity and talking down to myself in my head all day long. I'm that chick that talks a big talk but can't walk the big walk. I think a lot of my frustration is coming from the lack of result... except that there hasn't been a total lack of result, as evidenced here and here. But even reading back over those (the last from only about a week ago!!), I'm still sitting here thinking, "Who cares? I'm still a fat fatty who can't remain consistent with anything and therefore won't ever accomplish any kind of real goals."

And that's really the rub; I use my physical fitness progress and ability to commit (or not) to these health goals as a barometer for every part of my life and myself. I gauge every aspect of my life by whether or not I'm succeeding at this. I'm not entirely happy or successful at anything else in my life and so I focus a lot of time and energy on "health", and when I feel like I'm failing at that it just serves as a reminder of how I'm failing or have failed at everything else I was going to be or do by this point in my life. 17 year old me would be pretty shocked at how life turned out. But, then again, 17 year old me didn't really know what direction she wanted to go in either -- she just had faith is would all turn out amazing somehow. She thought, I'm smart, I'm talented, I'm pretty; I can do whatever I want in life. Except she/I didn't... So now, instead, I focus on controlling my body - except I'm not very good at controlling it, and it just reinforces all those feelings of inadequacy I've had since 19, when I realized how much I was fucking up my life and felt powerless to change anything.

Clearly I have a lot more going on in my head right now than I realized when I first sat down to draft this update...

So I'm floundering. That's the basic gist. Yesterday I ate well, today has started out pretty well. I had no physical or emotional energy for any type of exercise last night. And I can't make any promises for tonight, either. It's a beautiful day and I will be taking a walk at lunch. Baby steps, I guess.

I'm sure in another couple weeks or month or two I'll be posting about how much I just looove my body and my good habits and how awesome I'm doing -- and then in another month or two it'll be right back around to this slump and self-pity. Maybe it's time to admit there some sort of cycle to it all and there may be a bigger problem. I guess we'll just have to see, eh?

100 things inside my brain

I’ve had so many topics bouncing around inside my head the last several days. I don’t even know where to start, so I’m just going to write and see what happens…

A couple weeks ago I wrote about my confidence and security in my body, my lifestyle, etc. It’s amazing how quickly/easily things can change! The end of last week saw me suffering through some serious self-esteem/body-image issues. I sat down to write about it about 6 different times and could never get it finished and posted. Some of it no longer applies, but I’m going to pull some pieces out of those almost-updates and stick them in here to try to come up with some kind of a coherent explanation of what’s going on inside my head this last week or so.

First things first: I’ve lost just about all my motivation for exercise/workouts. It’s not just one thing or the other, it’s everything. Lifting doesn’t sound appealing, circuits don’t sound appealing. Running? Nope. Just a little walk? Maybe. But only if it happens in the middle of the day and prevents me from having to do work, y’know, at work. Tennis has still sounded fun and been fun – that’s the one thing I’ve done for purposeful exercise in the last 10 days. But my dad is my usual tennis partner, and I can’t expect him to be available to me every single night. (Or can I? Heh.)

At first I was thinking maybe I just was a little burnt out. Maybe it would do me some good to get a rest week in, focus on getting things ready for our 4^th of July BBQ we hosted for a few friends, take some time to relax with Mike, do some reading, some writing, etc.

That was all well and good for the first few days. By last Wednesday, though, it became clear that I was stuck in a pretty serious case of the I Don’t Wanna’s. I began drafting a blog update, saying how all was not lost, that I could just make myself get the workout in that night, put the damn candy down, resolve to make better food choices and carry on my merry way.

…but then Mike was having a bad day. Work was putting a lot of pressure and stress on him and he was feeling bad about how he handled some things with the kids recently. I didn’t want to add to that pressure by asking him to take on full responsibility for dinner and both kids bath/bedtimes so that I could get my 45 minute workout in before showering and leaving for trivia… so I didn’t. I skipped the workout, telling myself that I could get back on track Thursday evening – which would be better anyway seeing as we would be hosting people Friday night and there would be no workout time anyway. I did tennis Tuesday, so then regular workout Thursday and again Saturday and BOOM! Back on track! Back on program! Back in the game!

Do I really need to tell you that none of that happened? Sigh.

I will give myself some props for getting to bed at incredibly decent hours all weekend, which is phenomenal considering this was a holiday weekend. I even stayed home all weekend. I laid off the booze. I spent a lot of time with my kids and my husband. These were all good things, all positive things. I will say I walked to and from our local farmer’s market Friday, and to and from the little playground near our house Sunday. Not to mention all the cleaning I did Friday and Saturday. I did things, I was active, I just wasn’t “working out”.

Sunday afternoon/evening I started feeling the familiar pangs of depression creeping back in on me. I acknowledged it, mentioned it to Mike, and then went about the evening as normal. Monday morning I woke up feeling pretty decent. My mood seems a little more level today and I’m holding onto that and trying to keep it going. I’ve been pretty up for a couple weeks now, and I’d like things to stay that way. I’ve gotten into a good groove at work, and while I still think there are some changes I’d like to make in my professional life and career ambitions, right now things are feeling quite a bit less hopeless than they were back at the beginning of June. I worry sometimes I’m becoming complacent, but as long as I’m not entirely miserable maybe complacency isn’t so bad, right?

Now to start going all over the place with stuff, since I can’t really decide how to segue…

1) I’ve been on this candy kick for a couple weeks now. At first I was like, “Oh, well, my period. Because: female things. Hormones. Okay, cool.” But the thing about sugar is: it’s kind of addicting. I’ve been consciously trying to scale back on the sugar intake, but I think my recent obsession with fruit hasn’t helped much. Yes, it’s naturally occurring sugar mixed with healthy fiber and vitamins/minerals – but it’s still sugar and I’m still overloading myself with it, processed or not. I began thinking a lot about Primal Eating last week. I read The Primal Blueprint last summer and it all made sense to me. Now, I’m well aware of the recent evidence that’s come out against these gluten and grain-free diets. I’m all about everything-in-moderation because my #1 sabotage trigger is to start telling myself a certain type of food or activity is forbidden. But, with that being said, I also know it certainly couldn’t hurt me to choose leafy greens and vegetables over grain-based carbs more often. So over the weekend I started trying to do that. I bought lots of salad greens and veggies and have made myself big salads the last couple days using just plain old olive oil and white balsamic vinegar for dressing. When I wanted to snack Sunday night I went for the carrots and hummus vs the cheese and Townhouse crackers. Bit by bit I’m going to reign my food choices back in. I entertained the notion of starting to log calories again for a brief moment – I even put my breakfast in yesterday morning. But by the time I got through lunch, the idea of logging everything again brought on some serious anxiety. I don’t know why. Maybe a feeling of “failing” at intuitive eating. I think I still need to leave it alone for now. This wasn’t months of poor eating choices turning into habits… this was 2 weeks of eating more sweets than I probably needed. Not going back to counting just yet.

2) I’m becoming really fixated on aesthetic vs health and it’s driving me to a dark place. I get hung up on the way these fitness professionals/models and athletes look and I wish that were my body. But the thing is I know the strict discipline that goes into looking like that – the bland diet, the hours of training, etc – and I know that I’m not interested in making the sacrifices I would have to make to “get there”. Because the thing is, you can’t look like that 365 days a year every year for the rest of your life. Existing on sweet potatoes, broccoli, and chicken breasts gets old pretty quick. I love food, I love beer, and I love being really lazy sometimes. I also love the way I look and feel in my body most of the time. I’m not sure where this pressure on myself is coming from right now, but it’s making the idea of getting back “#onprogram” stress me the fuck out. I’ve also found myself shying away from my runs because I’ve somehow managed to convince myself that any cardio that isn’t specifically metabolic training is just “making me fat”. Don’t even ask where that came from. The “sweet spot” is supposed to be between 10-20 miles a week before you run the risk of your metabolism being affected negatively (depending on myriad of other factors as well!!) – and I’m not even hitting 5 miles most weeks (or ever). I think this is one of those situations where I’ve over-educated myself and now that education is attacking my psyche. I need to calm down and remind myself what it is I really love doing. If that’s a “program”, great. But the fact of the matter is, I’ve never been good at sticking to a program for longer than 4-6 weeks. #100daysofchange began with doing something a little different every day or every couple days to keep myself interested and active, and I lost that toward the end.  I think I forgot it until now. Maybe I just need to go back to that. Do some strength, do some cardio, do some HIIT/metabolic training, and do it a little differently every couple times to keep it fun and interesting.

3) Weight loss. I made the mistake of stepping on the scale about a week ago. I don’t know why. It was Sunday afternoon (afternoon = never a good time to weigh yourself anyway), I’d been drinking heavily most of the weekend, eating TONS of salty junk food, barely sleeping, and generally not taking very good care of myself. On top of being right in the middle of my period, so natural water retention even without all the other crap. The scale read 199.8. I flipped out a little bit. It’s stupid. It doesn’t matter. My clothes fit and look better than they did 6 months ago, my body composition continues to change and shift toward more muscle mass… 199 doesn’t mean anything. Except, in that moment, it meant EVERYTHING. I think this is where everything started; the avoiding exercise, the persistently in giving in to my sweets cravings, the general lack of enthusiasm for my health and fitness. After all, what’s the point if the scale isn’t moving?

It’s so stupid.

For me, seeing the scale move ceased being “the point” of this whole thing months and months and months ago. But I think a big part of me thought that by being active and eating healthier, by putting in the time and energy, it would continue to move down as the months passed. I haven’t been doing what I would have to do in order to push through the plateau. I’m not willing to at this point. That’s okay. But it’s not okay to think I’m a worthless person because I may teeter right around 200 pounds for the rest of my life. Being 20 pounds heavier than I’d like to be doesn’t define my worth as a human being. But I forget that all the time. It’s very sad, really. I should be kinder to myself.

So where do I go from here? I honestly don’t know.

Here’s what I do know:

• My mental health will suffer greatly if I stop regularly exercising - my day-to-day lifestyle just isn't active enough to drop purposeful exercise
• My mental health will suffer if I don’t continue to focus on a healthy diet
• Feeling sorry myself won’t make me leaner, in fact it will likely have the opposite effect

So, there we go. Good food and a good sweat have to be non-negotiable for me. 

Post-draft update:

I made myself go do some running intervals last night. It felt really good. I'm tired as hell today, but looking forward to tennis tonight and maybe some more running intervals tomorrow. 

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!

Intuitve Eating = Winning

• Whole wheat English muffin w/ organic butter and strawberry spread, 2 sausage patties, coffee w/ a little bit of sugar and organic half-and-half
• Almonds w/ a banana
• Leftover spinach feta “cheesy bread” w/ mixed greens salad (greens, carrots, Caesar dressing)
• A few pretzels
• Baked ziti (full-fat mozzarella and ricotta, whole grain pasta, tomato basil sauce) w/ mixed greens salad (same as above), homemade garlic bread using fresh Italian bread, a glass of whole milk
• Post-workout fruit smoothie w/ vanilla protein powder, frozen strawberries
• Homemade brownie w/ small scoop of cookies and cream ice cream
• Lots of water throughout the day

^This is what I ate Monday. I didn’t log any of those food items into my calorie tracker. It killed me a little bit not to log any of those food items into my calorie tracker… to the point where I did the math in my head at one point while catching up on some tv. And then I realize that’s kind of crazy. Why does it matter?! It doesn’t matter. Because I’ve been doing this for so long that I know how to do just fine, how to stay within my goals/limits. I know what all those food values are. I know what a serving size is/looks like. But that’s not the point – the point is to stop obsessing about those values, and to eat if I’m hungry, to eat quality food when I’m hungry (most of the time), and to eat the type of food I’m hungry for (protein or carb, fruit or veggie, whatever).

Somewhat surprisingly, I found it much easier to make more whole food choices throughout the day instead of immediately going for the taquitos in my freezer, or the leftover birthday cake in the Tupperware on top of the fridge. While I obviously had some dessert at the end of the day, it was a small portion.

I don’t eat terrible things all the time. This is something else I need to remind myself. If I’m eating 5-6 times a day, averaging anywhere from 2000-2500 calories, and 500 of those calories come from “junk”, I’m still doing pretty well. I’m doing a lot better than most.

Tuesday was also a good food day. I had a homemade full-fat greek yogurt strawberry/blueberry/granola parfait-type-dealie for breakfast, some apples w/ raw almonds for a snack, Qdoba bowl for lunch w/ black beans/chicken/veggies/salsa/sour cream/cheese and guacamole and a glass of water (where I normally would have gone for the soda), and a repeat of Monday’s ziti dinner. As a nightcap, I had a tall vanilla rooibus latte while visiting with a friend. I felt a little hungry right around bedtime, but drank some water and was able to sleep just fine.

Wednesday was a bit different. While I enjoyed healthy breakfast and snack,  lunch ended up at Taco Bell when I was really just hungry for a salad or something from home, and then I botched dinner by trying to fit in a run after work and ended up eating those frozen taquitos mentioned above (actually they’re southwest eggrolls, but what’s the diff, right? Junk is junk) following by half of a small blizzard from Dairy Queen. There was a quick milk/protein powder shake somewhere in there, as well. Overall, not a good food day.

But I learned something: over the last few days I’ve found it much easier to identify proper hunger and fullness cues. Normally I would have just pounded that blizzard because ICE CREAM DELICIOUS! But I no longer felt hungry halfway through, so I stopped. I did the same thing with my lunch over the last couple days - ate about two-thirds or three-fourths of my meal, no longer felt hungry, and just left the rest.

I’m recognizing better what type of food I’m actually hungry for, recognizing and acknowledging my feelings of “this was a poor food choice” (my exact words to my husband at Taco Bell on Weds lol) and sort of storing that in my mind for the future (ie: if you’re hungry for a salad with maybe some lunch meat or chicken and you eat a Taco Bell crunchwrap instead, it’s probably not going to be as satisfying or make you feel as good), and recognizing when I’m no longer hungry much easier. But most importantly: I’m no longer going through the day constantly wondering, “What and when will I eat next?” or feeling hungry all the time. I’ve been really good this week about always having healthy and filling snacks with me at work and making sure I’m stocked at home, as well. If I get hungry in between big meals, I eat those snacks. Sometimes it’s a lot, sometimes just a couple bites. 

So, yay! That's all well and good and working out better than expected and all that jazz... however, I completely dropped the ball on Female Body Breakthrough this week. While I've been "active", getting my 10,000 steps in (or within just a few hundred of 10k), yoga, runs, walks, etc. - FBB workouts have fallen to the wayside. I think I really did a number on my body last Saturday by eating next-to-nothing, working out hard, and then drinking a lot of beer and staying up pretty late. Monday's workout was really difficult and I was really lacking energy and focus. I didn't really push myself because I just couldn't, and took longer rests between circuits than I normally would. Tuesday I did some restorative yoga, which felt pretty good, but it was also much more difficult than it normally would be. I was also having some lower back issues which I think were/are stemming from lack of abdominal focus/over-arching during squats and that was definitely effecting my yoga poses. As I said above, Wednesday I attempted to run after work. I had both kids with me, which was fine though slightly distracting, but the actual "run" part was really hard, and honestly I mostly just walked at a decent clip most of the time. Even that wore me out! I tried to do just a quick round of circuits (not FBB) when I got home, just trying to keep somewhat on-schedule for strength.. but I just couldn't. My legs were NOT cooperating. I had so much muscle fatigue. So Thursday night, even though I felt INCREDIBLY guilty about it, I decided to for-real rest - no yoga, no running, just normal walking around during the day, etc. While I'm not entirely sure I'll have the chance to fit my regular FBB workout in tonight, due to the fact that I'm going out to enjoy some live music (YAY!!!), I definitely plan on getting something in on Saturday whether that be FBB, a run, or maybe both depending on how I'm feeling. It's supposed to be nice weather this weekend before another polar vortex comes through Monday night and starts ruining everything. It's almost MARCH! Can't we be done with this crap already?! ...I digress. 

My plan is to restart Week 3 of FBB on Monday to make sure I get those 3 workouts in and hopefully the "metabolic circuits" next Saturday or Sunday. But I'm really not stressing myself on the metabolic extras right now since I'm trying to fit some runs in to hopefully be somewhat prepped for the 5k in April.

This week has been much better in terms of sleep and taking proper "wind down" time before lights out, although I've slacked a bit on housework. My mood hasn't been quite as stable as I would have liked and I've had some pretty terrible mini breakdowns which have mostly been spurned by my demon spawn children. Having an autism-spectrum/gifted/hyper-sensitive 8 year old who lacks general common sense in all things, and a toddler in the most turbulent throes of the Terrible Twos who is so goddamn smart I don't even know what I'm going to do with him, makes me feel like running away to Fiji, faking my death or some other equally hyperbolic yet appropriate escape. AHHH!!! why couldn't my children just be AVERAGE?! This is NOT NOT NOT a humblebrag -- this is a very serious, difficult thing that makes me constantly question whether or not I am cut out to be a mother and worry about if my subpar parenting will lead to my terrifyingly brilliant children becoming terrifyingly brilliant axe-murderers. Plus some general mom/wife feelings of being under-appreciated and over-worked. But, then, who doesn't feel that way? I'm trying to acknowledge and move forward without saying to myself, "These are stupid feelings that only stupid people feel and you should stop being stupid" and then shoving them all down to just having them rear larger, uglier heads later. Heads that will bite me in the ass. 

So yeah. That's what's up.

I've screwed myself

by taking 2 months off from working out... I understand that I've had a pretty legit excuse this whole time, but I am SO OUT AND OF SHAPE right now. I did an hour of prenatal yoga Wednesday night and it kicked my butt. That is really sad because it was about 25% of the intensity of a "normal" yoga workout for me. But the point is: I DID IT. There was definitely a big part of me that just wanted to give up half-way through because I was so mad at myself for huffing and puffing my way through it... that part of me wanted to never do that workout again.. but I sternly reminded myself that if I don't keep it up then I just continue to feel as out of shape as I do now. I just hate that feeling of starting completely over... which ties in to that anger with myself for ever stopping good habits to begin with - I'm talking from back in high school and stuff. I think to myself, "I used to do 100 crunches, 50 squats and 30 wall push-ups every morning before I got dressed. Why did I stop doing that?" Obviously life is a little different now... I honestly don't think there's even room in my current bedroom to lie down and do crunches...plus that was before I worked full time, and before I was married with kids, etc, etc.

Exercise woes aside, I've done a really excellent job with my eating the last few days! Tons of fruits and veggies, very few extra calories. I'm pretty proud of myself.

Stats for 6/8/11:

• net calories: 1'900
• breakfast: oatmeal, apples w/ peanut butter
• am/pm snacks: nectarine, 1 oz. sharp cheddar, fiber one bar, Smartfood white cheddar popcorn, handful of sour patch kids, apple/raspberry juice, strawberries, green grapes
• lunch: turkey sandwich on whole wheat w/ cheddar and mustard and kettle chips at home
• dinner: tortilla soup at mom's
• late night: cereal - I was STARVING before bed
• exercise: 1 hour of yoga
• 11pm lights out

6/9/11:

• net calories: 1'712
• breakfast: oatmeal, kiwi
• am/pm snacks: apples w/ peanut butter, green grapes, granola bar, 1oz. sharp cheddar, tropical juice
• lunch: turkey sandwich on flax & fiber bread w/ cheese and mustard, baked lays, cottage cheese w/ fresh blueberries and strawberries
• dinner: homemade grilled chicken cesar wraps on whole wheat tortillas (SO GOOD)
• exercise: 45 minutes at the pool, 20 of which was spent doing some actual laps
• midnight lights out (a liiiittle tired today, not gonna lie)

I'm thinking about downloading a pedometer app to my iphone to see how much I'm walking just regularly during the day. I've starting making it a point to park across the parking lot at work and toward the back of the lot whenever I go to Target, the grocery store, etc... this way I figure even if I can't get an actual walk-for-exercise walk in, I've gotten a decent amount of actual steps during the day to boost that metabolism. 

Tonight I'm going out to either a baseball game or bowling for a friend's birthday so I will prob end up eating like crap, but it's okay to have some splurges here and there. I'm going to try to get at least a 15 minute walk in before we leave for that, if it's not too hot... the weather has been sweltering here the last couple weeks and that makes this pregnant lady feel like she's gonna die if I get my heart rate up too high while outside in the heat! Gotta be careful of that.. hopefully a couple months of regular exercise and I won't feel that way. 

All kinds of proud

Not only have I stuck to my nutrition guidelines all week, but I made it to the gym THREE TIMES! Burning between 450-500 each go, I am pretty proud of myself.

Honestly, I cannot remember what I ate yesterday to save my life and I don't feel like going to search for my little piece of paper I logged my food on... also I'm tired and want to go to bed so this will be quick.

4/1:

• breakfast: english muffin w/ the usual spreads
• am snack: apples w/ peanut butter and a vanilla milk
• lunch: half a baja salad and a jr. hamburger from Wendy's - also a jr. frosty.
• pm snack: peanut butter/chocolate protein shake from the gym (post-workout)
• dinner: spaghetti w/ a slice of garlic bread
• one hour workout at the gym
• 0 cigarettes - one week smoke free
• $12 spent on lunch (bought Mike's lunch today too)
• shooting for 12:30am bedtime

I promised myself a few weeks ago that if I made it to the gym three times in a week I would treat myself to my favorite protein shake from the juice bar - well, this week I finally met that goal!! I plan to make it a regular thing... maybe not always with the shake part.

Overall I'm super proud of myself and continue to see amazing changes in the shape of my body from the weight lifting I've been doing!

Sorry for the short post - weighing in tomorrow. Have a great Friday night!

Weekend slacker

Well, I didn't make it to the gym Saturday or Sunday - I was so tired. It's not even funny. I also ate a bunch of crap... but I'm okay with it. lol I packed my gym bag this morning and will definitely be hitting the gym after work today.

My weigh-in did not go as awesome as planned - first of all I forgot to do it on Saturday morning, so I did it Sunday morning... after consuming massive amounts of sodium all day/night Saturday. So yeah. I was at 197 exactly. So I'm pretty much maintaining my weight right now which I guess isn't the end of the world since I definitely can see the changes in my body since getting back in to weight-lifting. Maybe here in the next month I'll see at least a couple more pounds come off.

Food breakdown for the weekend, go!

Sat. 3/26:

• breakfast: organic granola w/ 2% milk
• lunch: crunchwrap and regular taco from Taco Bell... I know, I know... it gets worse...
• dinner: kung pao vegetarian "chicken" and some crab rangoon... lots of white rice. The place we ordered from doesn't do brown rice, and I didn't think to make any myself.
• 0 cigarettes
• $14 spent on foods
• 1am bedtime

Sun. 3/27:

• breakfast: donut (so healthy)
• lunch: leftover tofu chinese goodness
• dinner: thin crust supreme pizza over at mom and dad's
• 0 cigarettes
• $0 spent
• 12:30am bedtime - getting up for work this morning was hard! But that's what you get when you sleep super late on a Sunday morning... you're not tired when you're supposed to be!!

Part of the reason I was up so late last night was because I watched the first 2 parts of the new Mildred Pierce on HBO - I definitely recommend it!! Kate Winslet is so amazing. 

Goals for this week:

• start watching nutrition intake: 3 proteins, 4 dairy, 7 fruits/veggies, 6 grains/legumes, 4 good fats
• get to the gym 3 TIMES - I've been twice a week the last couple weeks, plus doing some cardio-type-stuff at home, but I'd really like to get that third weight workout in every week. 
• spend at least 3 hours reading, I need to finish Game of Thrones before April 17th!!! Plus I picked up a new fitness book I want to do more than just skim through. 
• get better about bedtimes - I feel like I've been pushing till midnight too often during the week and that needs to stop