Tips, a Chart and a Shout-Out

Hello team! It's time for another round of LGH excellence! Thank you so much for stopping by!

What's on the docket this evening? Today we're going to talk about my random tips and tricks I've discovered on my journey thus far. I'm also going to show you my calorie chart, and we'll have a shout out to my dad! What an exciting day!

I'm not sure what this is about but it looks like 3D scrabble.
And I like that.

Chapter One: Tips!

So let's start with that first thing, yes? I have discovered several different things that really really help me with this process and they are as follows:

1. NO EXCUSES. Yes, we've talked about this a lot. No, I'm not ashamed of repeating it. It means that 4 times per week, no matter what, T and I go to the Y. And it's fantastic.

Were you expecting a cheesy picture of folk doing a village people dance?
This blog has taken a turn for the Classy... jk, I still steal images from google :)

2. Volumetrics!!! This means that I still eat just a ridiculous amount of food. However, I'm learning the art of  figuring out something's calorie density! I had a HUGE bowl of spinach, kale, matchstick carrots and alfalfa sprouts with my dinner tonight. As I mentioned previously, I eschew salad dressing in favor of lemon juice and ground pepper. I also had steamed baby carrots and Brussels sprouts. I had ONE SERVING of spicy couscous and one ounce of cheese with my salad.

 But you know what? Whereas before I might have done one thing or the other--- just eaten the vegetables and denied myself any couscous, or more often just eaten a whole box of couscous by myself (seriously not even close to the worst binge episode I've ever had). The point is, I felt happy, satisfied, and not at all like I was denying myself anything. I allot myself ~ 400 calories for dinner, as it is my largest meal of the day (right now, someday I hope to be grown up enough for it to be breakfast, like it should be). And it's surprising how MUCH food I can have for that amount.

I used to eat bowls of noodles this big. FOR BREAKFAST. Just kidding, that... came out as confusing.

3. This is very much a friend with volumetrics: Embrace Strong Flavors! T and I are thinking about putting it  in rainbowy letters in our kitchen (to those of you who have never seen or experienced our kitchen, it is a BRIGHT array of colors).  So, when I first started making myself salad, we so happened to have some leftover mozzarella from a raclette meal. I like cheese in my salad, so I measured out an ounce and tore it up. But I didn't find myself being very satisfied with it-- it was pretty bland compared to kale and fresh tomatoes. So, what did I do? We upgraded to habanero jack. It's MUCH more effective. 

Um... this picture is what I got when I googled "Effective Cheese."
It could have been much worse.

The same thing was true the other day when we made quesadillas-- I had my tiny one-- but I  used SEVERAL jalapenos-- guess how many calories those are? Since we are separated by the vast interconnected tubes of the interwebz, I can't hear you shouting out "jalapenos are 5 calories per 1/4 cup!" Well you are so right, friends and family! You need to eat like 30 slices of jalapenos to get up to even 5 calories. And let me tell you, I LOVE spicy things, but I do not need 30 slices.

Chapter Two: Can Has Caloric Deficit?

 Those 3 things have helped me do THIS so far--- BEHOLD my caloric deficit chart for the week:

Those dark green bars represent moving more, and the light green bars represent eating less!!!
The white space represents FAAAATTTTT being burned away, bwahahahah!

I am so very cool. I want you all to notice that I average less than 1500 calories a day, like a boss.

Chapter Three: My Dad is Hardcore

We should perhaps take just one moment to think about why I am so very cool-- which is that my parents and friends and family are so very ridiculously cool. Specifically, my dad is also working on a healthiness project-- his involves much more training and running. Whereas I should not be allowed to run for fear of ruining everyone's eyes. 

Yes, I know I need to work on my self-kindness... but damn if it isn't hilarious.

Anyway, here is an image my daddy sent me earlier this afternoon:

Dad is very like me (or rather, I am very like dad) in that pictures demonstrating his point are important :)

I want to give you a quick rundown of what we're seeing here, folks:

• 81.5 Minutes.
• 6 Miles.
• 729 Calories.

My dad is hardcore, like whoa. :) Also he (and my mom (and my whole family)) is super-duper supportive and completely awesome. That's inspiration right there, team!  We've both been around the block in the weight-loss world. If there's one thing I can depend on in this process, it's that my dad understands what I'm going through and he's there for me. I love my dad. <3

My blog just got all sweet and sappy.
That sap better be low-cal.

So props to my dad.

Props to me.

And props to you for supporting us :) 

Thanks for reading, everybody! Happy Thursday!

What I Had For Dinner Tonight

Let's get right to it team, this is a mini-post, but it is a huge achievement for me. So let's do it up.

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!

It's Pasta with arrabiata sauce (Spicy tomato garlic sauce, omnomnom!), steamed Brussels sprouts and a salad of mixed greens, matchstick carrots, alfalfa sprouts, a tomato, lemon juice and 1 ounce of mozzarella cheese. 414 Calories. Maybe a little steep for one meal, but based on the fact that this will undoubtedly be my largest meal of the day-- I'm at peace with it.

 First off, I actually measured my pasta for the first time in probably my entire life. Actually, I measured everything. As a matter of fact, here's my measuring "station."

It's beautiful!!! I only wish all of the colors matched...

Anyway, the reason this is such an incredible achievement is-- I've struggled with eating too much pasta my entire life. A good portion (Ha! Food joke) of my binge-sessions involved pasta (or pasta AND breadsticks... wow). So pasta  is a huge weakness for me. But it turns out, if I make my own little pot of pasta and make Tarver make his own pot-- I am fine with it. Especially if I get Brussels sprouts. OMNOMNOM!!!

So this post is a little boring but my food was so beautiful I wanted to take a picture and this seemed better than instagramming it. :)

Quick Fact: I don't use salad dressing. I use lemon juice and pepper. I don't recommend it to the faint of heart, but I do recommend it if you are tired of gloopy salad dressings, bitter vinegar or the ranch that seems to be slowly taking over the universe. Also, lemon juice is 5 calories for 2 tablespoons... I promise I hardly ever use 1 teaspoon... so it's practically calorie-free! Hooraaaaay!

5 Things I Apparently Want So Badly I Will Brave a Stairmaster(TM)

After getting back from the gym last night, I got to thinking about a couple of things. I used a stair-stepper for the first time ever today. There is a reason they call it a stair MASTER. Because you are its slave. It is a cruel machine. I did it for maybe 3 minutes before I was like--- nope. Anyway, those three horrifying minutes got me thinking about my long term motivations... so here we are!

Liz's Health-Related Bucket List

1. I want to weigh less than my (male, 6'4") spouse. Also, those of you who are not strangers from the ethers of the internet (Hi Strangers!!! :) ) know how I feel about my husband-- which is basically that he is absolutely my favorite ever. I'd like to live somewhere near as long as he will.



Instead I feel like we're in that old nursery rhyme:
Jack Sprat could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean.
And so, betwixt them both, you see,
they licked the platter clean.
Who knows what that even means?!

2. I want to become slightly more coordinated so that I can take dance lessons. Those of you who went to high school with me-- and I believe Sarah commented on this the last time I talked about it-- know that even when I was smaller I absolutely could not dance. I am determined that someday I will be able to dance. At least a little bit, even if I will never do this:

I love watching ballet so much-- I'm just being realistic when I say:
"That's never gonna happen!"

3. I want to swim with wild abandon like I did when I was a kid, before I felt self-conscious about myself. I love to swim. I want to wear my swimmies without shame. When I was little I used to stay in the lake until my lips turned blue. I want to go out to the lake and go to the pool and go to the ocean and SWIM.

This is approximately how I dress when I go swimming and approximately the pose I stand in.
I couldn't be screaming "DON'T LOOK AT ME I'M ASHAMED,"  any louder if I actually literally screamed it.

4. For many reasons we are choosing not to decide whether or not to have kids. But part of our decision not to decide is that I'm not healthy enough to start a grow-your-own-human project. Whether or not we decide to have children-- I want that choice to be made without my physical health as a major factor. NOT of course, AGAIN, that we are interested in this at the moment. I mean, T works at a daycare for goodness sakes.

Ah daycare. Nature's birth control.
Wait, that doesn't make any sense...

and reason 5. TRAVELING, YO! Some of the most fantastic and beautiful places in the world are strangely, not reachable by lazy-car from the frozen tundra in which we live. You have to fly there and then walk and walk and walk.  I went to Spain when I was 15 and I think I lost like 20 pounds in 3 weeks. But the last time we went overseas in 2008-- I was tired, my feet hurt. I was hungry. I'm too fat for Europe!!!  That means I'm way too fat for Australia and New Zealand-- and way way too fat for any given place in Asia. There are so many amazing places to visit that are only accessible by hiking. I need to be in a shape to actually do that. Not to mention:

Chichen Itza:

This may as well be a cruel dating profile that ends in "No Fatties."

The Spanish Steps:

Wanna burn off that Italian pasta? Woot!

The Tiled Steps:

One of the least trippy things in San Francisco!

And those are just staircases that I could think of off the top of my head! I mean, THERE IS SO MUCH TO SEE IN THE WORLD. I will never see it with my butt on the couch.

So that's it, team. Thanks for listening. What physically challenging place do you want to go to? What's the most physically challenging place you've ever been? Tell us!

Seriously Watered-Down Calorie Science.

Hello again, my dear friends! Welcome to the latest installment of Liz Gets Healthy-- in which we get a weight update, I talk about whatever I want, and you'll also see a pokemon gif and we end with a weirdly serious PSA! Sounds like a winner to me.

Any post that starts right out of the gate with a trophy-- you know this is serious awesomeness.

I will tell you what I weighed this morning. I want to let you know that I put my weight on here not to be a sensationalist-- and not to begin some kind of gross-out-reality-TV-vibe (If I wanted to do that, I would post pictures of what my bare arms look like. *Shudder* you're all lucky that I love you and dress conservatively, thus shielding your eyes). I post it because it holds me accountable.

Seriously, Honey Boo Boo might mistake me for her mom.
I actually kind of like little Honey Boo Boo... I think she's presh.

So this morning I weighed in at 249! That really made my day! And we haven't even exercised yet today! Amazering! My first official two pounds! So awesome! It may not seem like much, but if we get into the science of it-- that means I've either burned or not consumed 7,000 calories!!! (Science tells us that 1 calories are actually a measure of energy and that there are several confusing disambiguations involving kilojoules and... stuff.) But the long short of it can be described by this lovely graphic:

OMG I LOVE SCIENCE!!!

Okay Science, but what does this mean? Well, today I'm going to tell you what I know about it and how I use that information. I know some of you know a BUNCH about this-- I know at least a small handful of you folks are either physical trainers, health coaches or sports coaches in some capacity-- so if I'm utterly wrong in the face, you'd better let me know.

Well, you guys could be nicer about it than this... but just let me know, seriously.

But every day, simply by existing, you burn a certain amount of calories to stay alive (I believe this is your metabolic rate? I could be wrong). If you have a desire to stay the same weight, you should eat the same amount of calories as you burn. So let's pretend you are a person (a stretch, I know) and you, by simply existing, wandering around, going to work, caring for your children, playing video games, fire dancing, whatever, you burn 2000 calories in a day. So you eat 2000 calories every day and stay the same weight. Hooray!

Oh. Mai. Gawd. Is this why skinny folks wear makeup?!
I finally know how I got so fat-- not wearing makeup.

 Approximately. If you have a strong desire to gain weight, you're going to have to consume more calories than you burn. So if you are that same work-going-child-caring-fire-dancing person, and you want to gain a pound in a week, you need to consume 2500 calories in a day, every day, for one week.

This is a fairly easy task in the United States if you can afford to spend even $20 at an Olive Garden and you like breadsticks. Or if you're willing to eat a burrito the size of your face. Or if you have an order of boneless buffalo wings on top of your regular food. Calories are everywhere, yo. For me, gaining 70ish pounds in 2 years was something I did quite literally by accident. There's a bunch of foods I could post here that are shockingly highly caloric. Maybe that's for another post, though. I will give you this picture, though:

Considering that THIS is a real food in 'Murica... yeah.

But if you're me and you have no interest in gaining any more weight, you need to figure out how to burn more calories than you eat! And my 2 pound weight loss means that somehow I have made it happen. I burned 7,000 calories. I am awesome.  My little fitbit tracker is a HUGE help to me in this regard, because it sets a goal for me every day to have a caloric deficit of 750 calories. Theoretically I should lose 1.5 pounds a week (which is a slow, long, painful process, but it must be done).

I think the most interesting thing that happens when I track my calories is how very picky I become. Where before I could just have a box of girlscout cookies and not look back, now I'm staring at nutrition facts and coming to the realization that if I want to exercise, if I want to be able to concentrate and utilize my brain, I had better not blow my calories on 15 caramel de-lites.

Calorically, these cookies are basically worth their calories in... cheesecake?

So calories become currency in my day do day life-- they're like money. How do I want to spend them, how many do I have left over, is there a deficit, how many can I earn at the gym so that I can drink my chocolate almond milk at night like I like to? Strangely, I think that getting our budget under control and practicing frugality in our financial lives has helped me develop good habits as far as budgeting.

So somehow, I worked and saved up 7000 calories. And a big shout-out to my body for going right ahead and cashing those calories in for 2 pounds of weight!

But how much is 7,000 calories worth in food, you might ask? Well, here's an interesting quiz to help you understand what a mere 100 calories looks like of various foods. I also found this interesting picture of what 200 calories of various foods looks like.

http://www.menshealth.com/100calories/

Here's the recipe for a REALLY confusing 1200 Calorie bacon-nut salad

But losing weight for me isn't just about eating less food-- it also means I hopefully burned some of those calories by traversing the gloomy stairwell at my work tower, some of them dancing at my desk, and hopefully a good portion of them at the gym!

And today will be no different! Stay tuned team. This is only the beginning. Today is a cardio AND lifting day at the gym, so everybody is ready. Remember, no excuses!

That Sandshrew has some intense bicep curls going on.

A VERY IMPORTANT END NOTE: I don't mean to say that it's easy for everyone to gain a pound-- just as it is very very difficult for me to lose weight, some folks struggle to gain. People struggle with weight on both sides of the spectrum. Eating Disorders are quite literally the most dangerous mental health struggles. A scary percent (I believe it is around 10%, though it may have changed) of folk diagnosed with  anorexia nervosa actually die from disorder-related complications, including but not limited to starvation. There's a whole host of things folks struggle with when it comes to food and weight including Orthorexia, Bulimia Nervosa along with my "friends" Compulsive Eating Disorder and Binge Eating Disorder. (We can be all technical and say that only anorexia, bulimia and "EDNOS" are in the DSM-IV-TR, but I'm just going right ahead and accepting BED, CED and Orthorexia as very legitimate struggles as well).

The point is-- I can be funny and post pictures of the double down, but eating disorders and high OR low weight are extremely serious matters. If you or someone you know is struggling, please, please, please reach out and get help or help them. Feeding them a double down is not going to help.  Instead try This Website and help them find professional help. 

Sometimes we have to get serious here at LGH.

The Importance of Being Honest (With Yourself)

Well hello, sweet internets! It's so good to see you all here! It's good to see me here, too! The topic for today is the importance of being honest with yourself.

Well, I think I'm honest with myself about what I want, which is pizza.

So today, I'm being honest with myself and the internet and posting my weight as of this morning. Then we're going to discuss a few other fun things that I've been thinking about. We've got a lot to do in this one little post, team! So let's get started with the number.

Holy snacks, did anyone else just hear the Wilhelm Scream?!

What does this mean? I'm 25 years old and I'm 5'6" so this means:

• I'm approximately 100 pounds overweight.
• My BMI is more than 40-- I'm classified as Morbidly Obese.
• I wear a size 20 pants.

But those are numbers. What does it really mean to me today?

• Today weighing 251 pounds meant I got up and had a healthy breakfast.
• Today weighing 251 pounds meant I did stairs on all of my breaks (I have climbed 13 flights so far today).
• Today weighing 251 pounds meant Tarver and I made a healthy dinner and I used my measuring cups and food scale to make sure I ate the right amount-- and my fitbit software told me what that amount was.
• Today weighing 251 pounds means we're going to the gym. No Excuses.

Because of what I'm currently working on for my job, I've been thinking a lot about positive thinking and the power it has. I can look at the incredible amount I weigh and be sad. Or I can choose to utilize it as a good motivator. 

I told Taaren yesterday that I look approximately like a marshmallow in the microwave.
She glared at me and told me not to be a jerk. :) I laughed raucously. 

So, with that out of the way-- we can talk about the other thing I was thinking about today which was the subtle art of readiness. Tarver and I have been exercising for a few weeks now and I've been eating well for about 5 days. I've tried to lose weight many many times before. Every other time it has felt like pulling teeth. Like I had to drag myself along every step of the way. Like a sled dog with way too much on their sled.

Except, let's be real, these dogs are in way better shape than I am.

I know I'm only a few days in, but it feels different. Not to get all sappy on you classy folks, but it almost feels like how I felt when I met Tarver-- I feel like "oh, this makes sense. Why haven't I been doing this my entire life?" I'm not saying going to the gym and measuring my food and doing stairs on my breaks is easy by any means-- it just doesn't feel as awful as the previous times. It doesn't feel like I'm fighting with myself.

If I start hitting myself, please let one of my many therapist-friends know.

The last few times I've worried and obsessed about burritos and pizza and coldstone. This time? I've decided I'm not giving those things up. I'm just limiting them. Yesterday Tarver and I had lunch with our friend Kyle and I cut my burrito in half. 400 calories-- which is a perfectly acceptable lunch. You know what made it even better? I got to eat the other half of that burrito today! I got to eat burritos TWICE! Yes, somehow I have tricked my brain into believing it is getting double the food, instead of half of the food.

Shhh! Don't tell my brain that this ISN'T what's happening!

 How and why does my brain accept that? I think it's because I'm actually ready to do it. I'm going to continue to make these small changes that lead to big changes. I'm Ready. I want it like never before. I'm happier with the other parts of my life like never before. We have more disposable income than ever before. It's time. I'm ready. I want my life and my self and my body to be healthy. I. Am. Ready.

Way to break up the sincere mood, Spongebob.

So, that's my story. I'm apparently honest with myself and you about my weight, but I lie to myself about how many burritos I eat. No one ever said I make any sense. But I'm saying these two things honestly, loudly and clearly:

1. I'm Ready.
2. No Excuses.

And for fun, here's what my FitBit Dashboard looks like right now. Thanks for reading, team! Leave me a comment! Send me to a friend who needs some motivation! Or just quietly close my page and come back next time (Saturday the 9th, I believe). We're cool. :)

I'm not even going to make a snarky comment. I love this thing.

Good break, team! Now let's get back at it!

Hi everyone! If you're here you've been roped back into what we all can pray is the final round of Liz Gets Healthy. I won't be posting as aggressively or asking for followers this time-- I'm doing it because it's helpful for me to reflect on what I'm doing. Reflecting honestly is one of the best things I can do for myself. So here we are, team.

Somehow I keep taking the exit that leads me back here. Weird.

You might be asking yourselves: What's different this time? What's the big theory?

There is no big theory. It's the same old theory. It's calories in calories out. Pure, delightful science. Yes, of course we can get more sciencey and say that I can't eat 1500 calories of cheesecake every day and expect to be a healthy human being. But for real. That's the science.

Thanks to Zedrin on DeviantArt for reminding us that even ponies love science!

It's telling myself this short list of things every day:

A, Don't Binge Eat, Seriously.
B, Move Your Butt, Seriously.
C, Regarding A and B--- NO EXCUSES.

Babies can weight train-- I can do 45 minutes on a treadmill.

I think this is the conclusion I had to come to. I can pin it to a moment a few weeks ago when I realized I had literally no valid excuse not to exercise. I have no valid excuse not to eat well. I'm a weird human being and I actually like vegetables and fruits a LOT. Why don't I eat them? Why do I instead eat ridiculous amounts of pasta, rice and sugar? Why? Because YOLO?!

Posted without comment. ;)

There is no excuse for 10 birthday cake oreos.

There is no excuse for not exercising for 3 months.

There is no excuse for an entire Qdoba burrito.

Do you guys like how I shamelessly steal random pictures from google images?
Me too.

So, that's the update there--  but there is good news! I did wait awhile before I started blogging again-- that means some great changes have already been made. Two steps have been taken in particular.

1) T and I have promised each other we're going to exercise Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (NO 'SCUSES!!!) and have been very successful so far! When it comes to exercising, I've discovered that I like to read on the treadmill-- I don't spend a lot of time just watching TV (if I watch a show it's probably with a computer on my lap or on my computer) so just watching TV doesn't keep my attention very well. But I've found that having my nook and reading while I walk makes the time FLY by. :)

Holy snacks these are actually kind of terrifying, huh?

2) Even though we are on a TIGHT, SEVERE budget-- we made an investment. I now am the proud owner of a little piece of equipment called a "FitBit." It clips inside my bra (yes, there's still a little bit of space in there... I know, I know) and tracks all of my motion. With the information I gave it (my age, weight and gender) it knows how many calories I've burned. The other brilliant thing about it is that when I track my food in real time-- it tells me how much more I can eat that day based on how much motion I've done.

It's much smaller than this picture... it's like cereal, maybe they enlarged it to show texture?

For instance: It give me both a calories consumed and a calories burned goal every day based on the weight I put in for the morning and the amount of weight I want to lose per week (1.5lbs). But it does a lot more than that. If at noon, for example, I've burned a bazillion calories and not eaten enough food-- it tells me. Here's what it looks like right now:

So looking at this-- I CAN HAZ CHEESBURGER!
Just kidding. I hate cheeseburgers.

 If I update my food in real time, it literally helps me keep my metabolism at the best rate. Plus it is SUPER adorable and fun. This is a screenshot from my actual "Dashboard," for today.

That's right. I climbed a big 'ol high dive. (I did stairs on each of my breaks today... my work is a big 'ol tower)

So is this just something ridiculously shiny that I will get bored of? NO!

I will tell you why:

Because NO @#$@#$ EXCUSES!

Also I love you all. If you read this whole thing you still believe in me at least a little bit and that's pretty cool.

I'm off to the gym!

... *sheepish wave*

Hi everyone. Guess what? I'm back and fatter than ever! Woo! Well, woo isn't right. I have a problem, here, team. New Year's is always the time when people sit down and re-vamp their lives. T and I have been doing a lot of work in a lot of other areas of our lives (namely in the financial region-- I highly suggest having a budget! It makes so much sense!) And we've made a lot of progress just by having small and measurable goals. So that's what I'm looking at. I don't know how much I weigh right now, but I know I want to weigh 5 pounds less.

That's the new theory. 5 pounds less instead of 5 pounds more.

It doesn't seem to be so much to ask?

In a way, I think losing weight is like an addiction. At some point, people just stop believing that you can and will change. In theory, I've been to weight-loss "Rehab," upwards of 5 or 6 times. Like drugs or alcohol, weight can kill you too.

This is where my extremely insensitive picture of Amy Winehouse was going to go.

Case in point.
Here is a picture of me and my bestie (also T) on my 21st birthday:

Here is a picture of us earlier this week:

T is as vibrant and awesome as ever. I look like I miiiiight die of a heart attack, like those guys in the SNL superfan skits (except, really, I don't ever eat bacon or sausage).

The resemblance is terrifying.

So, I know I've betrayed you all. You cheered for me and I failed. But if people can still cheer for the Vikings even though they've never won a superbowl, well, they'll cheer for me too, right?

I hope so. :)