100th Day and Beyond!

I don’t think I realized how much my #100daysofchange challenge would affect my life when I first decided to do it. In fact, I was sure I’d get 2 or 3 weeks in and just stop. Thankfully, and surprisingly, I stuck with it. Incorporating Instagram and the daily photo inspired me and kept me accountable in ways I didn’t expect – and so much of that is thanks to all of you who began following my progress.

I still have a long way to go, but I’m pretty proud of where I am right now in my fitness goals and body image.

So, what now? Well, that’s an excellent question. I want to keep going, there’s no question about that. Clearly this whole “post photographic proof” thing is benefitting me in keeping with my goals. My ultimate goal for this project was to do something active every day. While I had rest days and/or travel days here and there, I was probably 90% on-target for physical activity. That ain’t bad. But this project was simply that: physical activity. I made mention a couple times of “oh, and I’m going to try to do some things here and there for my mental health also!” but I didn’t really, with the exception of taking rest days when I knew I could really benefit from them both physically and emotionally.

The truth is, even after 100 days of making exercise a habit, eating decently, not obsessing over calories, and breaking my unhealthy bond with the scale – I’m still dealing with some pretty serious depression, stress, and anxiety. I think part of me (a bigger part than I realized) thought as long as I was treating my body well with exercise, good food, and plenty of sleep, I would be “better”. That changing my lifestyle would have this almost magical effect on my mental health. This is not to say that maintaining physical health doesn’t help – it helps. It helps immensely! Especially making sure I run at least once or twice a week. But despite my runs and my lifting and my food choices and my sleep habits, lately my anxiety has just been getting worse. I’ve had 3 panic attacks in the last 8 or 9 days, one of which lasted nearly 3 hours and almost sent me home from work. I feel like I keep repeating the same thing to myself every few weeks, “Something’s got to give/change”. Aside from selling all my worldly belongings and leaving all my friends and family to go start a new life someplace not here, there’s only one thing I can think of that I can do to really change my life: leave my job.

I think I sometimes forget how long it’s been since this unhappiness started. It’s been 2 years. And it’s been 10 months since I said I was going to change my life and get out of my current job situation. I’m clearly a liar as I haven’t done ANYTHING up to this point. And while things got a little bit better for a little while (a very little while), overall things aren’t changing and overall I’m not sure that any amount of change in my current environment would make things better. Now I’m faced with additional responsibility on top of what had already pushed me to a mental breakdown last September and a borderline suicidal place by the end of December. On top of that, I’m beginning to feel solely responsible for everyone else’s stress and happiness – which so far continues to manifest in my continuing to hate my life (and myself) in order to make everyone else happy and/or content. In reality, I think I’ve probably always felt that way, but I’m just now becoming aware of how much I feel it.

In light of these things, I want to really challenge myself to change many different things about my life and lifestyle, and I'm going to give myself another 265 days to do so. I was playing around with a bunch of different tags, but I think it might be best to just stick with #365daysofchange. Simple and to the point. I'll continue my near-daily physical activity and overall physical health stuff, but also set some goals for whole-life changes - new job, maybe go back to school - basically find something I love, or at the very least enjoy, and pursue that as a career. I have 9 months. If I can grow a fully formed human being inside my body in 9 months, surely I can decide what I want to be when I grow up and begin working toward it in 9 months. But my main goal is to reach that 365th day feeling better about my life as a whole. 

Just a picture?

Before we left for vacation I was feeling a bit down on myself. I've been in a scale-weight plateau for 18 months and was feeling like I was working hard for nothing. My vacation and the pictures we took there put me in a much better mood about my body image. Away from the stress of work/home (mostly work), I was able to see how awesome my body is. Also, something that was able to walk/sometimes run around for 12-14 hours a day for 5 days without too much complaining seems pretty amazing. I started feeling grateful and good about my body. I started really appreciating my body.

Appreciation is nice, but aesthetics are also nice... as shallow as that may be. This is where my daily #100daysofchange pictures come into play. I was feeling like I wasn't make any progress... and then while scanning through some photos, I noticed this:

In case anyone out there isn't good at calculating time...  that's approx 2 months. THAT IS A MAJOR DIFFERENCE!!!

Clearly the time and effort I'm putting into strength training is paying off and I may be finally reaching a point where scale weight means nothing to me anymore. It's all about body composition and building muscle.

Another positive this month: I posted this to my personal Facebook page the other day, but I'll share it here as well. It's been 74 days since I quit smoking, 33 days since I "cheated" and had a cigarette (one of only 3 since quitting), and 26 days since I used my e-cigarette.

I started up the Girls Gone Strong level 1 program on Monday - my back did just fine and felt so much better after finishing the workout. However, I'm dealing with some pretty bad post-vacation depression and managed to pack a lot into my social calendar for the week - all of which coincides with my usual workout time. I realized that my motivation, dedication, and willpower are not where they need to be and it might be a good idea to just let myself adjust a little bit. I've still been taking daily walks, and I'm committed to starting "for real" either over the weekend or Monday. It definitely helps to see the above picture! That's motivation to get back to it for sure!

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!

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.

Overcoming Myself

Last week I began drafting the following post:

"Well, if I said it once I've said it a thousand times: 2 weeks into regular exercise and a slightly better diet, and I am feeling about 100 times more positive about life. It's like I can see my depression chillin' just slightly behind me, waiting for me to acknowledge it - but I haven't felt the need to invite it to curl up in my lap and consume me. I'm just like, ‘Oh, hey, what's up Depression? Yeah, I can still see/feel the stress and sadness in my life... but I don't need to dive into it right now. 'Cause EXERCISE, MO' FO'!!’ 

Or something like that.

 I’ve been spending more time with my husband, reading more, watching less TV, cooking more regularly, drinking alcohol only a couple times a week, and smoking only occasionally. I am definitely concerned at how long this will all last, as I feel like every January thru March looks like this, and then April and warmer weather roll around and it puts me into “party” mode – wanting to stay up, socialize ALL THE TIME, drink! With drinking comes smoking! And by October I’m right back where I started. I keep repeating to myself that it doesn’t have to be a cycle, that this can be a real and lasting lifestyle change. It’s all up to me. It’s my choice.
 Hey, maybe this is just a manic phase. That's entirely possible, too. But I'm going to attribute this upswing to the outdoor runs I’ve managed to sneak in on the two (yes, only two) days that it was in the upper 40’s here – plus the other 3-4 days a week I’ve been either lifting weights or doing some yoga. That's right. I’ve worked out 4-5 days a week for the last 2 weeks. I’m also especially proud of myself because I managed to keep up with all this exercise even after a 48-hour bout of sickness AND have worked around social plans. Since the weather has turned bitter cold again, I’m hoping to get up to the local rec center on the weekends to knock out some runs on the treadmill. 

To hopefully help myself stay on track, I’m registering for my first 5k which will be just 2 days before my 30^th birthday!”

I was feeling incredibly upbeat, energetic, I was doing better at work, I was motivated in all areas of life, etc. I had an appointment with my counselor and was feeling like I didn’t even need to be there because things were awesome and I had figured out what my problem was and I just needed to be smart about exercising and eating better.

Then the weekend came… and went, and I realized the secret might not be exercise or eating right (although these things are obviously important in a million other ways and are contributing factors, I’m sure) – but for me, the Big Secret is probably sleep. All the sleep. All the time.

I had been going to bed between 10 and 11pm almost every night the last couple weeks. It was so much easier to get up with my children at 6:30am when I wasn’t staying up until 1 or 2am. (You can just call me Captain Obvious.) But the biggest proof that it might be sleep more than anything else was this most recent weekend, where I got significantly less sleep than I’d been getting (think those or 1 or 2am bedtimes of the recent past). It sent me into a tailspin. I may or may not have cried myself to sleep Monday night. (Hint: I totally did.) I started feeling overwhelmed with job-work, housework, and Mom Duty, I started in on myself for not doing a “real” workout even though I did 30 minutes of yoga and had run 2.25 miles the day before, I started flipping out about having to work the next day, etc, etc. At first I thought to myself, “See? This was just a manic phase – you’re not really better.” I was crying because I it was like, oh no – I’m going to be miserable every day again and I don’t think I can live like that. I’m so tired of being miserable. I’ve been so much happier. I don’t want to be like this. Then I started to realize how little sleep I got over the weekend and how busy I had been and how active I had been… and I realized, oh shit. I’ve exhausted myself and this is now my emotional response. I’m not sinking back into a depression that I have no control over – I have absolute control in this moment, in this situation, to just get more sleep.

The good news? I can generally make sure that I get the amount of sleep that I need in order to keep my depression in check. The bad news? This means a pretty significant adjustment of my social-life. It means if we go out for a drink on a Friday or Saturday night, I probably won’t be staying out much past that 11:30/midnight threshold. And you definitely won’t be seeing as many random weeknights of being up/out until or past midnight. This may put a little bit of a damper on my interaction with some of my friends – but maintaining my mental health is way more important to me right now than late-night socialization. There may come a time in the not-so-distant future where my work/life balance will be a bit better and less stressful and I can once again survive and function perfectly well with a later bedtime – but that time ain’t now, unfortunately.

So, now that I figured out that crazy puzzle – let’s move on to this 5K thing… and this turning 30 thing.

The fact that I’m about to be 30 is hitting me a little harder than I ever thought it would. Hey, but what better gift to give myself than a healthier lifestyle? And hopefully focusing on that will keep my thoughts away from, “What have you done with your life? What are you doing with your life currently? YOU COULD BE SO MUCH BETTER!”

Man, my inner-monologue is such an ass.

So, I signed up for a 5K since I all of a sudden fell in love with running at the end of last summer after being someone who hated running for most of my life. I never understood how my dad found solace on his runs until 5 months ago. It’s like a safe-place for me now. Maybe that’s part of getting older?  But it’s not just running, it’s all my workouts. I’m really thankful for that. It makes it a lot easier to continue motivating to get the exercise done, to get the workout in, to make it all fit into my full life.

I’m regularly running about 2 - 2.5 miles when it’s been warm enough to get out, and lately I’ve been averaging about a 15/min mile including a walking warm-up and cool-down (and some walking in the middle to catch my breath!). That would put me at about 45 minutes, give or take, for a 5K (3.2 miles). My goal is to come in a little under that. Maybe 40 minutes? I’m not trying to win anything, I’m doing this for me. I may hate it. Who knows?! It’s only a $30 registration fee and it’s something I want to try, so I’m going for it. I’m hoping by the end of this month it’ll warm up enough that I can get out 2 or 3 times a week and build up my endurance/speed before the race on April 13^th.

Okay, so now that I’ve figured out the best way for me to fight the funk, and I’ve rediscovered my love and motivation for exercise, I guess it’s time to post some pictures which I am very unhappy with. I may have only gained 4-5 lbs over the last couple months, but it looks like almost all of that was fat. Super.

January 12th, 2014 - 194lbs

Really super attractive, right? NOT! Oh man, I am so unhappy with these that I almost don't want them on here... but how can I see my progress if I don't have an accurate depiction of where I'm starting? I'm always bummed that I don't have better photos from my start in January of 2012 - so here we go.

Since 1/13/14 I’ve been doing a mix of things. I’m regularly doing yoga 2-3 times a week, and I’ve been sort of modifying the Starting Strength program and goofing off with lifting, and throwing in some random dancing around in between sets, etc. Many of you who are friends with me on Facebook see this come through from MyFitnessPal as “some lifting, some jumping around, some stretching” – and that’s basically all it’s been.

The last few days (which also could be attributed to not-enough-sleep), I’ve been feeling really down about my 14-month long plateau/fluctuation from 189 – 194lbs. I’ve eaten at all kinds of different calorie levels throughout the last 14 months, from 1600-1800/day to 2400-2600/day. My diet has also varied from primarily at-home cooking, eating “whole” foods to eating more processed/restaurant foods and back again. I’ve tried several different exercise/lifting programs. No loss, no substantial gain. My body composition has changed quite a bit, but not as much as I would have liked and my estimated body fat percentage is still a good 8-10% higher than where I want it. Basically this all boils down to the fact that I’ve been lax in my commitment to weight and fat loss. I’ve been unwilling to cut out my favorite foods and I’ve been hesitant and sometimes flat-out unwilling to really push myself during exercise. On the former, I’m still unwilling to completely eliminate my favorite foods – which is not to say I couldn’t stand to cut back further on some of the junk I like to indulge in, I absolutely can and should. However, I do solidly believe that the bigger problem is the latter – the unwillingness to put in the hardest work no matter how uncomfortable it is. I feel like this is changing for me, though. I feel like over the last week or so especially, I’ve been much more willing to push myself and challenge myself – to tell myself, “You CAN knock out those last two reps”, “You CAN run all the way to the mailbox at the top of the hill”, instead of “I’m just so tired/out of breath/uncomfortable, it’s okay if I stop here.”

It might sound stupid, but I’ve also taken to pumping myself up before I exercise – saying to myself that I’ve got this, that it’s gonna be awesome and feel great, that I’m strong and can get it done, etc, etc. Sometimes out loud! My husband enjoys that… and by “enjoys” I mean “enjoys making fun of me”. But I don’t care! It seems to work!

Another change: the last few months I’ve been keeping a fitness journal. I keep a notebook with me while I’m lifting and record all my weights, reps, sets, etc. along with how I’m feeling physically and emotionally. I also write in here whenever I go for a run or do some yoga and record how those made me feel. I’ll try to record if I’m running on too little sleep, or was feeling particularly hungry or had a lack of appetite, etc. This is where I record my measurements every couple weeks. All the things! Pretty much the only thing health and fitness related that doesn’t get written in this notebook is my food journaling, which I obviously do on MyFitnessPal.

Okay, so since I got all down on myself about lack of body changes and feeling stuck, I decided to revisit “The Female Body Breakthrough” by Rachel Cosgrove. Some of you may remember when I started this program back in 2012… twice. I never finished it, and I can’t promise or guarantee that it’ll get finished this time, as it’s entirely possible that I’ll get bored and move on to something else in order to maintain my motivation to keep up with regular exercise.

I restarted the program last night after spending the last several days obsessively trying to figure out what I was “doing right” the last time I had a decent run of steady weight loss. The two times over the last couple years that I had significant drops were when I was goofing around with FBB. Why not give it another shot and actually push myself and put some real effort in this time? So I did the first “base phase” workout last night and HOLY CRAP! My fitness level has increased EXPONENTIALLY since the last time I did this. It made me feel so good that I could do every move without needing to modify, and also that I was able to get through the 3 sets instead of just 2. The only thing I still don’t love about the program is the fricken 15-20 minute “warm-up”. It seems excessive. But I’m hoping once I get more familiar with it, it’ll go a little faster. Overall it took me about an hour to get through Workout A. This is only about 10-15 minutes longer than my ‘some lifting, some jumping around, some stretching’ goof-off routine I’ve been doing the last few weeks – and, as I said, the more familiar I become with the routine and the less I have to stop to look at the book, it may be faster. I see people on the MFP forums talk about how it only takes them about 30-45 mins, so there you have it.

This week is my fourth week back in the regular exercise game, so this weekend I’ll take new measurements (I took some a few weeks ago to see where I was from November, but never posted them – oops!) and new pictures. I already have a feeling that the new pictures are going to be much better than those above.