Gains and Losses

Team... it's plateau time again. A time of frustration and pain. A time of More Exercise, Less Food. A time of weighing myself and sighing, with the knowledge that science tells me I should be losing weight and somehow I am not.

The betrayal of science is deep indeed.

It is calories in and calories out, but I can't healthily and safely eat any less calories than I do. I'm at the bottom of the barrel at 1200 a day for an adult woman. And while I can definitely put in 2-3 hours at the gym on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays--- Monday through Thursday that gets difficult.

Though let's be real, these days were always going to be difficult.

The point is, to break a plateau you have a few options. The best of which is to increase your intensity. To be completely honest, I don't cheat on my diet. I exercise every day. I haven't skipped an exercise day or cheated on my diet (except for rest-days, which are required for my continued good health and 1 cheat meal a month) since March 3rd.  It's just not possible for me to get more intense right now and still sleep enough, attend work and spend a marginal amount of time with my friends and family.

Honestly, my real chart is more like 3 circles, and they are Work, Exercise and Internet

Basically the only other option is just to slog onward. So that's what I'm going to do. But! It won't help to have a slog onward attitude! I am going to rededicate myself to being excited about this process instead of exhausted by it. So today I want to talk to you about the things that I've gained and lost.

1. Gain: Self-Esteem. Somewhere along the line, I stopped wearing flattering clothes. I stopped wearing makeup. I stopped wearing any jewelry. I stopped enjoying shopping. I hated mirrors. I did not want to go swimming or walking or really anywhere that would make me sweat embarrassingly or really, use my body at all. Now, well, look out world. I may still be 20 pounds overweight, but I'm not ever going to let that stop me again. I have the confidence to do what I want and wear what I want.  I have a sense of self worth derived not from how good I look (which is good, by the way) but by my progress and achievements.

I don't want to brag (okay, yes I do) but I can totally do this now.

2. Gain: Strength. I did a bridge the other night in yoga class. I haven't been able to do one since high school. The other day I did an arm dip-- not quite the same as a pull-up (which is on my bucket list, by the way) but close. I can do pushups. I can hold a plank. I can ALMOST do the crow pose. If I focused just on losing, losing, losing, I would never be able to do these things. I want to be strong. Plus, I'd be way flabbier than I already am if I didn't!

3. Loss: My Mind. I've been keeping a one sentence journal for about a year and a half. When I look back at last year's entries, I mention many times that I "need a hobby," and am "not doing much." Well, now I have one. I have a series of fitness and running-related goals. I'm always working toward something, looking forward to my next event. I don't know that I would have been brave enough to push myself to do... much of anything that wasn't purely academic before this process. There are enough fitness challenges in the world I might never be able to do them all. I don't know that I'll ever be able to run a marathon, but that doesn't mean I can't improve my 5k time. My current best is 39:14. Still pretty slow, but I'm doing one 10/19/13 so we will see what happens!

I left my house at around 6:30 this morning. Where I live it is still very dark at 6:30. Very dark, quite cold and a little wet. But as I got warmed up and finally broke into a jog, I felt an incredible sense of elation. I felt unmistakably alive. I have become one of those crazy people who loves to run. I've completely lost it, teammates, and that is a-ok with me.

Apparently running in the dark is a thing. For me it just so happens to be dark!

4. Gain: Self-Control. My relationship with food has completely changed. While some part of me is still terrified (TERRIFIED) that I'll binge and fall off the wagon and regain all of the weight, but I honestly don't think it is too much of a threat, when I'm logical. One consequence of eating as little as I do is that my stomach is very small. I get full very quickly. Some people who change their eating habits describe developing an aversion to sweets-- this has not happened. But I never would have been able to eat only 3 Pumpkin Spice M&Ms (which is how many make up 25 calories). I wouldn't be able to control myself. I am not interested in looking like a fashion model, and I do think Kate Moss was wrong when she said "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." But for me, it is true that nothing tastes as good as healthy feels. 6 slices of pizza would make me feel awful. I like the way I feel now, and I'm willing to continue exerting my self-control to keep this feeling up.

I really don't think I'd be able to do a mudman if I weighed this little?
I'm going to be buff, yo.

5. Loss: 30% of me. That is a crrraazy amount. It's incredibly apparent when I think about how many clothes I have blown through. I'm almost a full third smaller than I was when I started-- and you know what? No matter how long it takes to get out of these last 20ish pounds, I'm going to make it. 

Thanks for reading!

4 Healthiness Tips I Completely Ignore

Hello teammates! As I continue to make progress on my journey, I like to keep looking at tips and tricks on various websites. Greatist is my favorite because they actually use scholarly-reviewed journals to write their articles. I also loves me the Health and Fitness boards on Pinterest. Let's be real, for the past 6ish months, I've soaked in basically anything that had any intention of helping me get healthier. When I look forward to my last 25 pounds (yep! I hit the 75lb mark!) I know I'm going to need all the help I can get!

I'm seriously obsessed with these people.

 I try a LOT of different things. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't.  Sometimes, I don't listen to the suggestions, and I do okay! It turns out, like I've said before, weight loss is about calories. How many you eat and how many you burn. I gain and lose from eating too much sodium, not drinking enough water and building muscle too, so it's not an exact-exact formula. However, I find that as long as I exercise hard and keep to my calorie limits, everything else is kinda moot in the long run.

The other thing I know about weight loss is that it's an intensely personal journey. Everyone does it in their own way and in their own time. I don't get to tell anybody else how to do it, and nobody gets to tell me how to do it. Even experts, because I sure do like to ignore their advice!

So, without further ado, 4 Healthiness Tips I Completely Ignore and a BONUS!

1. Eat Small Amounts of Dark Chocolate to Curb Sweetness Cravings.
 It seems strange, now that I think about this, that the writers of fitness blogs and articles accept that most people will need to have something sweet on occasion, but insist that it is this one special thing... dark chocolate. I have never liked dark chocolate. As a matter of fact, as a kiddo, I didn't even really like milk chocolate. I chose white chocolate or vanilla of whatever I got a choice for. I'm fairly certain even Tiny-Fatkid-Lizzy turned down chocolate ice cream, which I just straight up don't enjoy.

It makes my teeth hurt just looking at it. Bleck.

But, health gurus (self-proclaimed or otherwise) repeat this tip ad nauseam. Skip milk chocolate they say, it often has cream and other additives that make it more caloric. Plus,  they add, dark chocolate provides antioxidants!  Well, there's just one problem with that, folks. I hate dark chocolate. Eating a small amount of dark chocolate just makes me sad and miss coldstone's cake batter ice cream.

So I straight-up ignore this rule. I do eat chocolate. I eat very small amounts of milk chocolate,on ocassion. Furthermore, I don't see the problem with eating other bite-sized candies, as long as you're able to keep yourself under control, have a beensy amount of whatever candy you want. I have caramel-apple Werthers AND Hershey's kisses in my desk right now! I eat one about every other day and it is AWESOME.

2. Have a Cheat Day
Whoever invented this tip had not studied up on binge-eating and the folks who struggle with it. Sir or Madam, you clearly have no comprehension of the amount of calories I am capable of consuming in a 24 hour period. I understand that for people avoiding certain foods, or people who don't struggle with binge eating, this makes the rest of the week bearable, and only messes with your calories a little bit. For me... well, it could be disastrous.

Let me explain to you the damage I could do with a cheat day. Let's take yesterday for instance. Yesterday, according to my FitBit, I burned 2941 calories-- that's a lot, I ran 1.4 miles and shopped and went on a walk. That means if I wanted to stay the weight that I am today, I could have eaten almost 3000 calories. I do not want to stay this weight, I want to lose weight, so I ate around 1200 calories.

On a bad day in 2010, 2011 or 2012, I could eat upwards of 6000 calories. On a good day, I probably ate around 4000. I struggle with binge eating. If I had a day each week I could eat whatever I wanted, you can bet that I would have several slices of pizza, breadsticks, cheese, probably a burrito, pasta (with more cheese), 4-5 tacos (with yet more cheese) french bread, macaroni and cheese with extra butter--- you get the idea. Then we could get started on dessert! A 6000 calorie day would put me almost 2 full pounds back.

I dare to you guess how many calories this is. Hint: More than I eat in one day.

I lose about 2.5 pounds a week and I work hard to do that. Basically, if I had a cheat day... well, I wouldn't lose any weight at all. So, I am on my "diet" almost all the time. When people ask me why I don't just "calm down," or "relax," or "treat myself," I shove another piece of gum in my mouth and say "I can't be trusted." Because I can't. Others are able to do this-- to enjoy a day where they don't count calories and end up just a few hundred over. That is perfectly awesome, okay and legitimate. As I have said, weight-loss is intensely personal. Having a cheat day each week will never work for me.

With that said, I am not an ascetic. If T gets dessert, I get to eat a bite. As I said above, I've worked approximately 4 hershey's kisses a week into my food-plan. I eat a ridiculous amount of protein bars, which to me taste like candy. Also, I do have one Cheat Meal every month. Each month I make T take me out to Indian food. I eat Saag and basmati rice and 1/4 of a ... slice? piece? circle? of naan. I almost always gain a little the day after this happens, but I gave up burritos and pizza-- I wanted to keep saag. A day every week would wreck me, a meal every month is just a bump in the road. This works for me.

3. Work Out in the Morning
This doesn't work for me. It just doesn't. Although I have been advised that I am a "morning person," because I drive everybody nuts by being chipper without coffee at 8am, I would like to advise you all that, no, I'm really not. I wake up at the absolute latest moment possible and do the most minimal amount of doing and preparing in the mornings. (Sidenote, I'm not really a night person either! I'm really more of a 4 year old who needs like 10 hours of sleep and gets cranky if she doesn't get it).

Yeah, this is not how I roll.

So the idea of actually waking up to work out-- well, I'd never ever go. I go to yoga on Saturday mornings because it happens after 9 and since my schedule is so consistent, my body wakes me up around 6:30-7 even on the weekends. On Sunday mornings I've gone for a Zombie Run (more on Zombie Runs later) almost every week for the past few weeks. However, In general, I can't make myself workout before work. Not only do I not want to get up that early, I get really stressed out about getting to work on time. I work out at night, and this works great for me!

4. Don't Weigh Yourself Every Day

I love/hate my scale so much.

Man, if I had a quarter for every time I heard this one. I weigh myself every single day that I have access to a scale. For realz. I know, scientifically, I can't put too much stake in the numbers. But I find knowing the number to be incredibly motivational. If I'm down even a little bit, I feel good about myself, and have reason to give a little extra. If I'm up a tick or two, I feel motivated, and make sure I stay dedicated all day. Basically, every morning I have to be honest with myself about how I did the day before, and how I'm going to do today. It's a re-dedication, a check-in and a time of commencement. My day has started when I accept my weight and get in the shower or get dressed. I straight-up refuse to change this practice, because (are you noticing a pattern?) it works for me! I won't go into my whole sociological/therapy thing about rituals and created meaning and blah blah blah, but know that it's really important to me.

Bonus Tip:
I hope you're getting the theme here. I had to figure out how to make healthiness work for me. I had to find a way to convince myself to move more (Hello, FitBit!) I had to find a way to work through my binge-eating (Hello, strictly controlled calories and small indulgences!) I had to find a way to make exercise enjoyable for me (Hello iPad, Yoga Class and the Zombies, Run! app!). That's the only way I was/am successful.

Look, it's me!!!

Let's take the Zombies, Run(!) app as an example. I'm fairly certain I have said (along with tons of other people) "I will run if something chases me." Well, problem solved. Now I'm part of a crazy pseudo radio-show/fitness tracker/online game. When I go out for what I call  a "trek," I'm not aimlessly navigating my neighborhood anymore (not that people can't have fun doing that, I just don't). I've got Zombs at six o'clock at 40 meters and they're closing in fast! If I don't reach the supply shed in time, we won't have fuel to run the generators! Complete with Zombie noises, gunfire, alarms and startled British people, the Zombies, Run(!) app changed the way I felt about running. It made it an adventure and motivates me to push myself. It made it work for me. Plus, if you recall, one of my first posts was about being the heroine of my own life. Well, if saving lives in a zombie apocalypse isn't being heroic... I just don't know where I'ma find dragons to slay!

So my tip-- find what makes it all work for you. Please feel free to ignore it! ;)