part 2: getting active

So part 2 of the stuff that I've realized about why WW didn't work for me this time is that, even though I lost a good 18 lbs, I didn't do it by being active.  I controlled my calorie intake until 20 points was usual for me, but every AP challenge that I joined, I failed miserably. 

Part of this was because I was trying hard NOT to be obsessive about working out - I used to be a junkie, and I would constantly beat myself up for not going to the gym at least 2 hours every day.  But that also led to me being barely active at all.
This realization helps me a lot in terms of looking at my near term goals.  Its unrealistic to expect that I'm going to suddenly jump to working out 5 days a week.  CalorieKing.com has a very nice tool, which counts the number of minutes you work out a week, rather than intensity, calories or whatnot.  The initial recommendation is 150 min - 5 30 min workouts a week, or 2.5 hours total.

That being said, I'm setting some modest goals for myself this week in terms of working out:

- Tues: Pilates Reformer, 60 min
- Wed: Spinning, 60 min
- Either Thurs or Sat: Dance, 75 min

One step at a time, right?  It will help that John and I are supposed to go spinning together on Wed, since that will be the hardest one to get myself off to.  I was also playing with the idea of going to the gym tomorrow am, but given how I'm feeling right now, that's unlikely   Bleh, still sick. 

Also, as a follow up to my kitchen revamp post, I'm going to try and stick to my 1,400 calorie/day diet.  I've been tracking decently this past week, but not meeting my targets so much.  This week, I'll track tighter and try to hit my calorie goals, if not necessarily my nutritional intake quite yet.

part 1: revamping the kitchen

This past week, I realized a couple of things about my weight and my health approach.  First and foremost is that, the past year and half or so have really been spent pulling out the issues from the proverbial closet - ranging from body image issues, weight and eating habits, to my greater self-perception, and ways of dealing with people.

Now that I've finished the decluttering of my life, so to speak, I'm ready to start restructuring things in a better and healthier way.  Part of that will be with the way that I eat - and hence, the title of the post: revamping my kitchen.

I really like the Abs Diet and the focus on nutrition, but I am not so keen about following the meal plan.  Just not me - I like flexibility.  So I'm going to take the principles of the diet re: nutrition and exercise and how they affect metabolism and incorporate it into a healthier way of eating. 

I've already somewhat started it by leaning more towards organics.  Now I'm going to try to be conscious of healthy proportions of food in what I intake every day - making sure to get the righ amount of calcium, fiber, protein, good and bad fats, and limiting my intake of sodium and sugar.

Now, whether or not I actually lose weight and increase my metabolism remains to be seen.  But I think it will be good for my health one way or the other .  At the very least, hopefully it will stop me from being sick so dern often!

a weekend of nothingness

These are my lofty goals for this weekend:

    * Fold laundry
    * Make chicken soup
    * Return things to Sports Basement
    * Log bills in MS Money

Reaching, aren't I? Its my first non-Tahoe weekend since mid-February, and I have almost nothing that needs to be done. In fact, even before Tahoe-fever hit, I always had all these things that I wanted to accomplish this weekend. I'm finding recently that even my weekday evenings are filled with nothingness - not even TV watching! (Well, except for Thursdays for Grey's and Ugly Betty - but that's just because I can't wait to watch those shows!)

Its really quite wonderful. I used to freak if I didn't fill my days and nights with activity, and then, even when I didn't NEED to be constantly busy, I found that just getting used to the day-to-days of being an adult (bills, laundry, cooking, etc) was exhausting. Now that I've settled in, I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I like nothingness. For those of you who have known me for a while, you'll know what a big change this is.

Its also a lucky boon since I woke up yesterday morning with an awful stuffy nose and sore throat. I barely made it to/through Schroeder's last night for MeatFest, so this morning I slept in until 1:30 with nary a thread of guilt. This is really what life is all about - enjoying the time you have, rather than stressing about what needs to be done.

wake up call

So I'm on Day 2 of CalorieKing.com (technically 3 b/c I logged in Sunday after the fact), and the feeling I get when I look at my intake is that I'm not eating enough?!?!?!  How is that possible? 

I put in my recommended protein, fiber, fat, saturated fat, calcium, and sodium intake today, as per a combo of The Abs Diet and FDA recommendations.  And even though I'm already at ~800 of 1200 calories, I'm barely at my minimum for protein, calcium and fiber.

Which begs the question - where the heck are all my calories going?? 

In case its not clear, I really like the site - if nothing else, it will help me eat a little healthier and spend less calories on stuff without nutritional benefits

loving calorieking.com

Hey all!

I'm finally alive and back on board!  Gah, last week and a half was the worst - as I posted previously, I had this WEIRD sickness where I was completely exhausted for like 10 days.  Finally went to Tahoe this weekend and slept 16 hours on Saturday, and woke up refreshed and ready to ski on Sunday.

I've been talking about some changes that I was planning on making, and finally did them.  First of all, I chopped off FIVE INCHES of my hair on Friday.  Whoot!  The guy did a pretty good job, so I don't look like a boy or a 12 year old schoolgirl   Even my most conservative guy friends (who only like girls with long hair) think it looks good... so I'm happy.  Feels like a weight off my shoulder - no pun intended, haha - as it coincides with the shedding of the whole Boy(2) mess.

Also, I did actually quit Weight Watchers - not just the meetings, but online.  I started up with CalorieKing.com, which was sort of nerve-racking at first, because its a completely new UI.  But since I regularly use the CK food database to find my points value, figured - why not?

Let me tell you guys - its AWESOME.  Seriously.  Such a great site.  Not only does it have the most comprehensive of foods in the db, so you don't cosntantly have to search for calorie counts, but it has a really impressive list of features.  These are just a few of my favorites:

- Nutrient counter.  Not only does it log what calories you have, but also the amount of protein, fiber, calcium, etc., that you consume.  There are about 10 that you can track, and choose as many as you want to display.

- Nutrient recommendations / settings.  Not only does it count them, it also assesses your recommended nutrient amounts for each day.  For those of us with certain needs, you can actually set your target nutrient level - which is AWESOME, because, now that I'm loosely following the principles from The Abs Diet, I want to get in a certain amount of protein and fiber each day.

- Exercise planner and calendar.  Not only can you log your workouts, you can also plan it out so when you open your day, its already there.  There's also a calendar view that shows you your weigh-in day, workouts for the month, etc.  So cool for planners like me, who end up putting it in a Word doc anyway.

- Step counter.  If you're using a pedometer, you can track the number of steps per day.

- CK University.  Has lessons on not just weight management, but starting to get active, behavioral changes, etc.

Finally, what surprised me the most was that the site recommended my target weight to be HIGHER than I originally planned.  My default has always been 120 lbs, but honestly, I'm not looking to lose pounds now - rather, build muscle.  So it was a pleasant surprise.

Plus, its a lot cheaper than WW - $45 for one year for first timers, $20 for 15 months for renewal.  So for those of you like me, who are sort of half-heartedly on WW now, you might want to do a one-week trial and see if you like it.  Good alternative, especially if you are not taking advantage of WW's selling points (meetings, points).

Yay! 

alive... in a surreal kind of way

So, first of all, thanks to those who have checked in on me recently.  Yes, I am alive.  Sorry I've been so out of touch. 

I've been going through one of my weird life-changing periods, and this time, instead of blogging through every change, I just withdrew into my own little life.  I think a part of me was starting to feel like I was going back into my old pattern of doing things b/c of how it would make me look to the outside world, so I've been keeping a low profile.  Also, sometimes I feel like I have these huge epiphanies that I'm so enthusiastic about, and then try to force myself to stick with changes.  So instead, I've let things be sort of organic, and been bopping along without any real effort.

So, first things first.  I have not been paying attention to my weight at all.  I tracked my points the last couple of weeks, but as I wind towards the end of my WW subscription, I've been less and less interested in tracking.  Part of this is because I've started reading The Abs Diet, which is actually, despite its name, not gimmicky but a real sensible plan.  But, to distinguish between cause and effect - a lot of The Abs Diet's philosophies resonate with me, because I've always felt that WW was missing the muscle-building component that I am looking for now that I've shifted from weight loss to fat loss.  But I'll save my commentary on The Abs Diet for another day.

I don't know how much I weigh, and frankly, I don't care.  I'm not gaining weight at an alarming clip, and my focus has finally been tuned to fat loss/muscle gain, rather than weight loss.  This may be part of the reason why - even though I felt that "click" - WW has been such a nonstarter for me this time around.  Its a great program, it just doesn't exactly suit my goals right now.

In my personal life and career, things have been shifting at a somewhat surreal and alarming pace.  Last I left you guys off with, I have a set of changes that I was going to make.  Oddly enough, after a spurt of very conscious changes, they took on a life of its own.  So I didn't resolve things with Boy(2) the way that I expected, but we finally put things to bed.  I got my mad on, and right now, I'm pretty pissed at him.  And he finally knows it.  I don't know if we'll ever be friends, if I'll stop resenting him for the ambiguity and shite of the last few months, but now's probably the best chance we have of resetting our dynamics.

I never did sign up for a meal delivery plan, but somehow managed to start cooking healthy food for myself regularly - even though I never could do it when I vowed that I would.  I did in fact quit Club One and join 24 Hour Fitness, and for what a price!  $475 for three years!  And most importantly, I'm finally starting to stand up to people and reaffirm my boundaries, as opposed to feeling like I didn't deserve to be treated well.  At the same time, I've somehow stopped seeing everything as a critique of me, and just got on with my life.

I've been sick in a weird, exhausted kind of way for almost a week - there's something funky going around the office where we get hit and sleep for 48 hours straight right now.  And in the brief snatches of hours that I *am* awake, things have been weirdly out of context - eg, offsite today rather than work, etc.  As a consequence, everything feels totally surreal, especially the changes in my life that I've walked through rather half-asleep recently.  Logically, I know what did happen and what was a dream.  But because I've been sleeping so much, my funky dreams feel as real to me as reality, and because I've been half-awake, real events feel as unreal to me as my dreams.  Regardless.  The point is that things are changing, and without me forcing them or even in control.  And I  kind of like it.

big changes!

I had a life-changing moment last night, somewhere between Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy.  I don't know what it was, or how it hit me, but I just know that I want my life to be different.

First: I'm tired of waiting for the "right time" to do something, or stressing out about how one-thing-or-another will impact my future or turn out in the future.  My whole life has been a waiting game, stemmed out of fear - fear of rejection, mostly.  "I'll start dating once I lose weight", "I can't get into a relationship now because I'm messed up", "What if I can get a better price later on my car?", "I don't want to do it the easy way because I want to do it right."  I'm often plagued by indecision, alternated with period of impulse/compulse behavior that I end up regretting.

I'm also tired of being angry / annoyed / anxious all the time - the deadly triple As.  I'm not thrilled about the way my boss's attitude is towards me.  I hate being frustrated by bad drivers.  There's always something that makes me internally roll my eyes, put me in a bad mood, et al. 

This ends now.

I don't know how this is going to manifest in my larger emotional life or behavior, but I made some pretty quick decisions about my weight loss.

1.  I quit Weight Watchers.  Yes, you heard me right.  I love the program, but its gotten to a point where I'm just estimating points based on what I know.  The problem is that I'm so used to it that I'm no longer mindful of things. 

So I joined CalorieKing.com.  Didn't look at 10 different program and analyze them, just did it.  Whatever.  If it doesn't work, I'll quit.

2. I'm quitting my gym (Club One) and joining 24 Hour Fitness.  Yes, its ghetto as hell, but its cheap.  This gives me more flexibility to do classes outside of the gym.  And doesn't stress me out.  I need to do yoga and kickboxing, if I'm anticipating some level of stress increase from my boss coming back from maternity leave.  I have friends at work who will do it with me - might as well take advantage of it.

3. I'm starting a meal delivery service - 1200 calories.  Yes, I should cook, track, learn to eat sensibly.  But I can't get my appetite under control, and I just don't have time to cook!  It could be a short term thing, it could be a long term thing.  Who knows?  It might be disgusting.  I've ordered a week, and we'll see how it goes.

4. I quit my therapist.  I think I might have mentioned it before, but I just want to do it on my own.  I can't have ppl holding my hand forever.

There's lots of other things going on, but I don't have time to think about them right now.  Maybe this weekend, while I'm at Tahoe.  Or maybe I'll just stop thinking about this completely - I think too much.

Basically, there's nothing earth-shattering here today, except the way that I made my decisions.  I didn't spend tons of time poring over what-ifs and will-I-like-its and if-its-perfect-or-nots.  Life is too short to wait.  I may never lose weight.  I may never have a great body.  I may never meet the perfect guy and get married and have babies, or be promoted or have the absolute best job.  But I'll never know unless I take a chance, right?

its hard to be honest

... when you can't remember.

I went out for post-work drinks/dinner with Boy(2) - as friends ONLY - but I did forget to log my points yesterday.  So I feel like I'm off.  I also didn't log my points for today until tonight.  So I feel like I'm mini-cheating.  For example, I had a nice healthy salad with roasted chicken (no skin), and initial recipe builder said it was 11 points.  It didn't sound quite right to me, so I reduced the portions a bit.

Am I a cheater?

The worst part about tracking points is that a lot of times, you really do need to guestimate how much goes into what.  Its easier if its a recipe - or if you eat a food chains all the time.  Yeah, thanks WW for all of those Denny's meals - but do ppl really eat like that?!  Anyhow, sorry, rant over.  Sometimes I feel like weight loss food databases are often geared towards middle America, which eats at a lot more established chains, than ppl who live in places like San Francisco.

I didn't make it to the gym today - totally blew off my trainer - and I'm in the process of deciding if I want to stay with Club One or switch to ghetto-ass 24 Hour.  The good news is that a bunch of work friends want to do things like yoga and kickboxing together - yay gym buddies!  The bad news is that I currently pay $77 a month for a gym that I basically use the elliptical at.  If I want to start taking other classes, its going to get expensive.  24 Hour can range anywhere from $19 to $45 a month, depending on the plan, but I am terribly afraid that it will be so gross I'll never go

More motivation, though:  I got a new bikini from Target, and it looks just HORRIBLE.  I'm thinking of checking out the more AP-intensive activities like Spin or Kickboxing as opposed to my nice mellow elliptical runs.  We're going to Mexico in May and I've got to get into bikini shape!  Plus I've got a wedding to go to in early May with college friends, so that's a nice little motivation right there.

OK, I've talked myself into Spin at lunch tomorrow... MAKE ME GO!!!

spring ap, week 1: and we're off!

Hello, ladies!

I gotta say, I am just truckin' with the tracking!  Even though that infamous click didn't happen until mid-week, since then, not only have I been dead honest with myself on what I've consumed, but I've also managed to come in under this week's target the last couple of days.  That goodness for that emergency supply of Lean Cuisines in my freezer!

I'm feeling good about eating better, tracking points.  As I mentioned, I don't feel guilty all the time anymore because I actually know where I'm at, and feel in control of where I'm going.  The guilt was driving me bonkers!  I know its Lent and all, but a girl needs a break from the guilt.  Its bad enough that I'm barely sticking to my sacrifices.

I did manage to sneak in 12 APs this week - thanks almost solely to skiing last weekend.  Otherwise, this stupid cold and the mental reorganizing would have amounted to a slow week.  But I'm enthusiastic about starting my new workout plan tomorrow morning - and skiing some more in Tahoe next weekend!

Week 1 Stats:

• Weight: 123 lbs
• Body Fat: 24.7%
• Total APs: 12
  
• Chest: 33"
• Waist: 28"
• Hips: 35.5
  

• Points Target: 23
• AP Target: 16
• WW Meeting: Monday
• Workout Schedule: AM Ellip on Mon and Wed, Trainer on Tues, Dance on Thurs, Tahoe on Sat

the click

I'm terribly glad that Gvemoment is back on ExP, because she has such terrific insight in her comments that always made me think.  The first time around, she grabbed onto the word FIERCE, which then became my key word and attitude. 
Now here I am again, trying to lose fat rather than weight, and once again her comments struck a chord.  Yes, the "click" finally kicked in.  The whole maintenance/weight loss/work out thing just hasn't clicked for me in almost 6 months, which is why I've been sort of half-assed about the whole thing.  But suddenly it has, and I can't be more glad!

I'm still truckin' with the tracking.  And I'm still sort of horrid with the eating.  But at least I'm facing my actions rather than just feeling guilty about it.  Surprisingly enough, actually logging the points in really helps me get over the guilt.

I've got a workout plan, based not on the bare minimum and what I *should* do, but what I like.  Until mid-April, its going to be ski season for me, as I try to go as many weekends as possible, and sneak in some weights and elliptical runs in between. 

Starting April 28th, dance workshop starts up once again - and by some miracle, the classes are on Sundays.  Hooray!  I was just thinking the other day that I wished dance or kickboxing would be on Sunday, so I could do other stuff on Saturdays.  Wish granted!  Plus I've got a pretty decent regiment of pilates, weights and cardio to supplement it.

And I don't want to be too ambitious right now, but hopefully in July, after the performances, I'll start kickboxing again. 

The click is this indescribable thing, but those of you who have felt it know exactly what I'm talking about.  I've been begrudgingly working out/trying to stay on track and failing miserably because I resented the fact that I had to do it.  Sometimes all it takes is a slight attitude adjustment and suddenly everything opens up for you again. 

On a totally non-WL related note, I've decided to stop seeing my therapist.  She's wonderful, but I just don't feel like talking about my issues anymore.  Truth be told, yes GCQMom - you're right - I haven't come full circle.  Because this time last year, I was miserable.  I hated myself, I hated my life.  While there is still much to be improved and done, for the most part, I've got the tools in my arsenal to make my life good.  I think its about time that I try using them on my own, rather than leaning on the crutch of a therapist to get me through it.  Besides, its not like I can never go back to her if things arise, or even for a check in once in a while.

I'm finally looking forward to my life.  After the hell that was last year, its about damn time!