I think I can do this

The beginning of this year has been difficult for me for many reasons, but I'm coming out of the end of it and ready to start again.

On the running front I am up to week 3 of my 5K trainer and still going strong.

Goals for this week:
Watch my calorie intake
Run two more times
Get in at least one round of weight training.

Find something positive to think about at least once a day.

I told myself the month of March was going to be the Month of Hope and being halfway though it now I can see it is and it will be even better tomorrow, despite the snow.

Oh! and to take Vitamin D hoping to stave off the seasonal sadness.

The PLAN

This week's homework is to make "A PLAN."  So, what is my plan? what am I going to do differently this time? What works for me? What doesn't? I think I'm going to need a three pronged attack .. or three pronged strategy.  Exercise....Eating....Stress Management.  The first two I have a plan for...the third one is where I need to focus my mental knife.

Exercise

My hubs has changed offices and so now he has to be at his desk by 6:45 in the am. Not only that but he will probably end up doing shift work as well, which means nights and mid afternoon to the early AM hours.  I used to plan my running (when it wasn't so freezing) on his non-early mornings.  So, here's the plan for January:

1. Walk/Run at least one mile a day on the treadmill or outside.  (Which I have managed to do up until my trip to the podiatrist.  At this point I am only one mile behind.  So, if I do 2 miles today I'll be caught up.)  

2. Two to three times a week I will get in some strength training.  I would commit to more than two but this week sucked my will to live, so I will get in at least 2.  I have a feeling that they might be on Saturday and Sunday....not the best plan but it is better than nothing.

3. I really want WILL get in at least 2 to 3 Zombie 5K trainer missions.  April starts the new 5K season and I want to nail them this year!

I would most definitely like to exercise in the morning rather than in the evening.  When I exercise after the boys have gone to bed I am WIDE awake for hours.  To that end, I will have to make the commitment to going to bed early.  Which I have done before, when the boys were very little (newborn and 3 year old) the hubs was stationed overseas and *it* *was* *just* *me* + a full time job.  I made up my mind that I had to go to bed at 8:30.  Otherwise I was no good for my children or my students.  So, I am committing to getting up early to get my running/walking done.  Strength training doesn't seem to make me unable to sleep, but I'll have to experiment with that one. 

Eating

Today, starts my 2 week induction on Atkins.  I love low carb.  I have been doing low carb for at least 3 years.  Now that doesn't mean I haven't fallen off the wagon several times, but I always feel better when I am eating real food...not plastic-y fake food (yes weight watcher meals...I'm looking at you!)

Breakfast - 2 pouched eggs + 2 lean sausages

Lunch - cup of green vegetables + protein

Snack - string cheese or a handful of nuts

Dinner - 2 cups of veggies + protein

I am going to do my best to avoid sugar free candy.  When I eat it, I stall in my weight loss.  There....I said it...I can't eat it often.  Sometimes...but not a lot.  I also know that when I am tempted to eat it, it is a sign that I am under stress that I am not acknowledging. 

Stress

Sleep - I have a bad coping mechanism for dealing with stress and that is eating or staying up really late.  It makes the situation worse because then I have less sleep and less patience, less rational thought, and less ability to deal with the daily stress and yet I will continue the ugly circle by staying up late and eating the next night.  

Food - The teacher's lounge is a horrible place for food that I can not eat.  I will admit I am guilty of sending things that I can not eat to work with my husband...so his office can get fat and not me.  So I am sure that others are thinking the same thing.  "If I put it in the teacher's lounge it will be gone by the time I get to lunch." So if it is not on The PLAN, it is a NO! At home it isn't that bad, because we don't have that stuff around, or if we do the hubs knows and keeps it hidden from me. 

A Sponsor - I will work on recognizing the itchy feeling that leads to ice cream (sugar free or otherwise) and call someone.  If that isn't available, I'm sure I can talk Liam into taking the dog for a walk.  Twenty minutes of walking usually get rid of the itchy 'gotta eat something to feel better' feeling.

It feels good to lay out "The Plan" I will do...there is no try...I will do this here.  :) 

triggers = T - I double 'guh' - ers

This week’s homework is to deal with triggers.  Triggers are events or things that detour you from staying on track with a diet / lifestyle change.   This is my third year of working on my choices in eating / exercising / diet / lifestyle etc.  Every year I try and look at my triggers and I have had moderate success.  As my sister says, we are far from being “cured.”  J

Emotional Triggers

The biggest emotional trigger for me is stress.  I have thought about this for a long time because everyone has stress.  EVERYONE!  Why is it that some are able to not dive head first into a bowl of nachos and some aren’t.  For me, my trigger stress is what Joe and I call, “Can you squeeze blood out of this stone?” stress.  Other phrases for it could be “The-impossible-task” stress, “The-no-control-over-the-outcome” stress, or the “Are-the-people-in-charge-crazy?” stress. 

I swear, losing weight is like being in AA (forgive me for anyone who has been in AA, all I know about it is what I’ve seen on TV and we all know how accurate TV people are).  In AA, they often say the serenity prayer: 

    God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

I think that I need to make a small card with this printed on it, like a business card, and when I am feeling the Sisyphusian Task Stress (Greek punished to keep pushing the boulder up the hill) I can pull it out and remember I can only do what I can do and I can only change what I can change.

Food Triggers

I was thinking about these on my run this morning and although I am far from being ‘cured’ I feel like this is the one area that I have made some head way.  I do not keep a lot of “bad” food choices around the house and the ones like my Achilles’ heel (ice cream) is not allowed in the house.  There is a bowl of candy for the boys on top of the fridge.  I am pretty good at not touching it.  This year I had to throw out some of last year’s old Halloween candy! That is a milestone! A Non-Scale victory (NSV) for me.  Now, to be clear there isn’t any chocolate in there from last Halloween, but there is candy.  Four years ago that bowl would be filled and drained, filled and drained, even the “meh” candy would have been eaten long before it could have gotten stale. 

Trigger Sponsor

This is my last AA reference for the day, I swear! I need a good Trigger Sponsor.  Someone who will not let me have “just one bite” …. Would anyone say to an alcoholic, “Oh, you can have one drink” because when I am in Sisyphusian Mode one bite is the slippery slope to 3 servings of ice cream with all the trimmings!  I think a good sponsor would say, “What is stressing you out?” and then “Will ice cream fix that?” and without the Dad Tone say, “How about a walk instead.” (My secret goal is to suddenly turn into one of those people who are stressed and go for a run!) J

Today on the last day of 2013, I am going to go through my pantry and fish out any hidden food and purge it, it wasn’t for the kids anyway…it was for me! And ask my sister to be my sponsor.  Then I can be hers but I haven’t had to field any crazy phone calls from her…so…hmm…

What are your triggers and what is your plan for dealing with them?

Day 1 - again...attempt number 3,492

Question of the week: Why am I even dieting?

It would be so much easier to just eat what I wanted to, not get up in the morning and exercise, and keep buying larger and larger clothing.  I can see easily falling into a self made trap of sitting on the couch, watching TV and eating handful after handful of what ever I wanted to eat.  It is easy.  It is comfortable. It feels safe.  I don't have to face what is bothering me when I do this but it has ugly ramifications.  Self anesthetizing myself with food is an old habit. 

Why do I want to change?

  1. I don't like the way I feel 

  2. I don't want to wear tight jeans 

  3. I want to run again

  4. I don't want to pass these habits on to the boys

  5. I don't like seeing the scale inch up and up and up

  6. I want to not be in the obese category anymore

  7. I don't want to feel guilty anymore

  8. I want to feel normal in my own skin rather than slightly itchy

  9. I want the outside to match the inside 

10. I don't want a muffin top that feels (to me) like a cake top

11. I don't want to feel tired

12. I want to be a good model for my children

13. I want to run the entire 5K without stopping

14. I want to get rid of the monkey on my back that whispers ... "one bite...what could it hurt!"

15. I want to feel strong

16. I don't want to be afraid

17. I want to know why I feel afraid

18. I don't want to feel disengaged

19. I want to be around for as long as the universe has planned and not curtail it by my choices

20. I don't want to feel heartsick anymore

2 weeks to go and almost there!

We have 14 days left until our March 25th weigh in and a couple of things happened.  My sister had two weeks where she was surrounded by really non-diet food and gained some weight.  She calculated that she would have to eat 1200 calories a day to lose the weight she had gained/needed to lose to meet the 25th of March deadline.  So, I told her I would do the 1200 calories a day, My Fitness pal says I should be around 1450 to lose a half a pound to a pound a week.  Oh My Goodness, the first couple of days I was STARVING.  But the results have been pleasant.  So, as of this morning I have only .6 pounds to lose to make my bet.  OH Yeah!!!

Then, I decided to take my 2 days off of exercising consecutively, I took Monday and then took Tuesday off...and it bled into taking Wednesday off...and then Friday off....egads! The Exercise Trap; when you are exercising on a regular basis you feel WONDERFUL and then when you take a couple days off (my limit seems to be 2 days in a row) and then I want to become a sloth and BFFs with my Tivo remote.  When I exercise, no I didn't say if I said when, I will have only exercised three times this week for only 20 minutes each.  Which is really sad because I was going on a 4 week streak of 5 times each with at LEAST 45 but more like an hour of experiencing!

So, my goals for this week are to get back to exercising and try and lose at least a pound so that I will be under my goal and have a little bit of buffer.

3 pounds down + 3 more to go

I have 22 days left until the March 25th quarterly weigh in.  Recently my sister and I decided that we would do a side bet...hmm...I guess it isn't a bet per say but rather a extra added something.  We decided we would exercise 5 days a week and if we could make 5 YAY if we couldn't at least try for 4.  So I dusted off my Hiit (High intensity interval training) or Cross Fit journal and decided I would do 15ish minutes of that and 45 minutes of tread mill at least 4 times a week and 5th exercise could be one or the other or both depending on how my body felt like I could handle.  Well, I immediately gained 4 pounds....bleck.  That was 3 weeks ago.  Last Monday I gave myself a goal of loosing 2 pounds because I need to lose 2 pounds a week to get to my weigh in requirement otherwise I will owe a political party $100 ....not good.

The results = 3 pounds lost oh yeah!

This week's goal (with 22 days left) 2 pounds and exercise 5X this week.

If all goes as planned, by next Monday (with 14 days left) I will be at my weigh in weight which will give me the last 2 weeks to get in a couple of buffer pounds.  I do NOT want to what happened on the New Year's Eve weigh in to happen again.  For days I had my 3 - 4 pound buffer and then on the day of the weigh in I was up 4 pounds...STRESSFUL!

Here's to hoping that the adage "counting your chickens before they hatch" doesn't come true in the next 22 days! Murphy go find someone else to play with!

3 Year Anniversary!

Yesterday was the 3 year anniversary of this blog / this diet pact.  Wow! And for some disappointing news...yeah...I was up to 200.3 this morning.  pffft...

Almost 3 years

On Tuesday it will be 3 years since I started this diet pact.  I have managed to keep off 50+ pounds in 3 years. I have exercised more in the last 3 years than the previous 10 (most likely, because I didn't keep track).

This week I hit an all time low (for this month) at 196, so I was one pound away from my 5 pound goal for the 25th of March.  This morning I'm back up to 197.2 so the scale sucks.... and I looked back and since the 3rd of this month I've lost....a half a pound.  Meh.  Or maybe I should look at it as; I haven't gained anything! even through Valentine's Day!

I have 5 weeks left until the 25th of March and I want to be well below the 195 range so there will be no 5 am surprises!

My goals this week are to exercise 5 times (which I did last week) and log my food for at least 5 days and be honest about what I eat.  There is no skipping hard work and watching what you eat.... nope none. sigh.

I am excited that it has been almost 3 years and I'm excited that I've kept off 50+ pounds.  I am looking forward to this week exercise and diet because I know I can do it.

Now, I'm off to buy cupcakes for my hubby's birthday.  My personal goal for that is to only eat half of one. Yes, it can be done.  I've done it before. :)

This Last Week

I made my goal of 4X of exercising and I lost .9 pounds.  However, this morning (Thursday) I was up 1.1....bleck.

This week I intend to lose ? and exercise 5 times this week.  I've already done it twice so I've got three more times to go.

I want to lose be a pound lower than I was at the end of this last week but I fell face first into some chocolate on Valentine's day.... and with that 1.1 up I will just do what I can to be reasonable the rest of the week.

OH! and for LENT I have given up snacking after I put the boys to bed.  I use that time to totally nosh out on food, not sure why.  I don't need it but I do it, so that is what this non-catholic is doing to give up a crutch and find something else to lean on.

Exercised...weight meh

I got in 4X of exercising, my eating...on about Friday I took a dive into Carb Land...and Pulled myself out very very slowly.  I have done "well" today.  I haven't stepped on the scale.  :(  yes there is fear involved.  Tomorrow is soon enough to get onto that scale.  Maybe I'll post tomorrow the results.

My new goal is to exercise 5X which means I will take off Monday and Friday and exercise the rest of the days.  Wish me luck :) I did it before I can do it again.

I made my goal....as long as I exercise today

I did manage to lose a pound ... or two.  I got so disgusted with myself I stopped putting my numbers into My Fitnes Pal so I'm not really sure.  I'll have to check my last blog, but I'm not sure I actually posted an actual number.  I can't tell, except that I know I was at 196 on January 20th.  Well, I am at 197.6 so bummer.  I know I was back up to 199 at some point in between Jan 20 and today.  I need to go back to tracking the damnable number on my calendar or in My Fitness Pal.  An unforeseen consequence of this bet and being on MFP (My Fitness Pal) with my sister and my father is that I only want to put my losses in the tracker, not the gains.

But I have exercised twice this week and if...woops...WHEN I exercise this week I'll have made my goal of 3X this week.

Next week's goals.  Lose a pound exercise at least 3X.  More if possible, but at a minimum it will be 3.

Last week

So, I made none of my goals... I was horribly sick.  It wasn't until today that I started to feel human again. So, new week new goals: exercise 3X lose a pound !

NSV - Non Scale Victory

I've had a couple of NSV's (non-scale victories) the first is I have had a couple people whom I don't work with anymore say that I have lost a lot, which has always been hard for me to take as a compliment.  So, I made sure to say thank you! and it has been hard for me to actually see the changes.

The second NSV is a little stranger.  I am a side sleeper, and I have never had an issue with my knees banging against each other when I sleep, until now.  Apparently, I inherited my father's bony knees! The ... achy-ness of having knee bones rub against knee bones has actually woken me up.  So, I have lost enough "padding" in my knee area!

The last NSV is my pajamas.  I have been since I was a teenager a semi-clad sleeper.  The least amount of clothing possible sleeper.  I hated the feeling of t-shirts and pajamas riding up because I would wake up with the craziest strangler dreams that I would just forgo shirts and what not.  Then when I had the boys and was breast feeding, I needed to wear something to hold in all the "gear" that went with breast feeding at night.  After that I enjoyed sleeping in yoga pants and a tank with some "support."  Now, I am having a return of the strangler sensation and have ditched the sleeping paraphernalia again.  So, perhaps it is time to get some new pajamas! :)

Last one, I swear, I got out of bed and my hubby says, "What is wrong with your underwear?" I looked and they were not fitting me...so along with the pajamas...underwear, too!  

That's the end of my slightly embarrassing NSV's :)

Pact Thus Far

Well, everyone made their Oct 8th pound-age loss for the quarter.  We all made the Jan 31st quarter....most of us by the skin of our teeth...and I mean the skin of our teeth.  For me I had been 2 pounds under for the 3 days prior and 3 pounds under my goal the 4th day before.  Then the day of January 31st I was up to the EXACT number I had to be at...it was very ... cr@ppy in my opinion.  I gave myself a couple days off and then got back onto the scale....and realized I would have to lose 4 additional pounds...yes I went up 4 pounds on my 2 day Carb-fest... you'd think I would learn or not get so disgusted with myself and / or the scale. ... sigh.

For Christmas the boys got a puppy and I can not tell you how much STRESS that puts on me... It is almost worse than an other child or an infant.  At least infants have DIAPERS and will NAP!  On of us, Joe or I always have to be with the dog, he gets excited and piddles...a lot...a whole heck of a lot.  My sister keeps telling me that it will get better...good gods I hope so.

Our next check in is March 25th and I have been doing really well these past 3 weeks.  I lost the 4 pounds from the Carb-Fest, Plus the mysterious 2 pounds (I think those 6 pounds were hormone related...Eve's bite of the apple is the gift that keeps on giving ::joking::) plus 2 more pounds.  I am 1 pound away from the 5 I need to lose for the March 25th weigh-in.

I will be honest, I am having the hardest time getting myself to exercise.  I am just not getting it done.  I know that the more I don't exercise the less interest I have in exercising.  grr....

Ok, so let me make a goal.  I want to exercise 3 times this week.  Let me start there.  Just 3 times.  3 is more than 0.

such a bad blogger!

My sister and I made another pact...this one a year long.  We are calling it the 4th of July bet.  There are four quarter check ins and a five pound loss expected for each weigh in.  October 8th was the first weigh in...we all made it...now the next one is Dec 31st...yikes.

End of first week - 49 more to go!

Darn scale...went up 2 pounds on Saturday so Monday's official weigh in was down 4 pounds.  This week has been good so far lots of crossfit and lots of treadmill (it is to blessedly hot here in MD to be outside...sorry I'm a whimp when it comes to wet heat.) I need to take my measurements so that I can have some perspective with the scale.  I saw an interesting quote the other day and loved it :

"because excuses are the minions of apathy!" I have no minions today :)

almost home a week...and 5 pounds lost!

I know I lamented about not losing weight in MT, but apparently my body was "saving" it for this week. :) 

We (my sister, my dad {gasp} and I started a new diet pact - this one has been dubbed the 4th of July Bet.

Here are our rules:

Rules:

• 50 week bet of half pound a week. 
  • We are shooting for 1/2 pound a week. That's 6 pounds per 12 week session. The penalties apply at 5 pound per 12 week session. 
• Check in days are on Mondays.
• If a quarterly check in is not achieved then the participant will pay $100 to the opposite political party. For the quarter following the payment, we will pledge to loose 5 pounds from there. For example, if the second quarter we miss our 10 pound goal and loose 8 pounds, then $100 would be owed to the other party and the third quarter goal will be 13 pounds.
• If someone passes the goal for the quarter, GOOD JOB! The next quarter's goal stays the same. For example, if someone looses 8 pounds in the first quarter, then the second quarter goal is still 10 pounds. 
• We are counting in whole pounds, no rounding.

Start bet July 16, 2012

1st Quarter Check in = 5 pound loss by October 8, 2012

     Total Goal Loss: 5

2nd Quarter Check in = 5 pound loss by December 31, 2012 (Because of the cruise dad has to maintain this quarter, his goal will be to loose 5 pounds total by Dec. 31)

     Total Goal Loss: 10

3rd Quarter Check in = 5 pound loss by March 25, 2013

     Total Goal Loss: 15

4th Quarter Check in = 5 pound loss by July 4, 2013 

     Total Goal Loss: 20

My sister wrote up the rules...I think she missed her calling as a lawyer! :)  hmm...we didn't have any contingency plans if someone lost all of their weight before the 4th of July 2013...we should all be that lucky (ahem skilled) to lose our 20 pounds before the deadline!

After 4 weeks of CrossFit...

My sister and I...or I should say I talked my sister into doing a little CrossFit with me while I was in Montana for the month.  So, the big nerd in me wanted to take some baseline data and see how much better we could do by the end of the 4 weeks.  Our baseline was 4 rounds of 50 seconds of work with a 10 second break, 4 exercises in each round so a total of 12 minutes of exercise.

Base line data                                     At the end of 4 weeks
Squats 37                                            Squats 83
Push Ups 41                                       Push Ups 79 (no I couldn't squeeze out 1 more)
Tricep Dips 77                                   Tricep Dips 93
Ab crunches 138                                Ab crunches 174 (!)


Pretty exciting results.  We plan to continue doing CrossFit with a tentative schedule of 3 days on and 1 day of rest.  When the school year starts I think we'll move to a Monday and Friday off and the rest of the week on.  I think that now that we are stronger it will be a good time to add in some more cardio, but we'll see how this goes.  I can say at the end of my month in Montana I have lost 3 pounds (at time it was a total of 5 pounds) and I think I am burning fat off and putting on muscle and .... I .... hate.... how that does not show up on the scale. I think it is time for another weight loss bet.... but more on that on Monday.

Just keep swimming...just keep swimming

I've been exercising....I've been watching what I eat....and does the scale show it? nope...nada...nilch....boo...

I am pretty sure I am replacing fat with muscle as I can tell in the mirror I am less lumpy and bumpy...I just wish the scale would show it too.

So, until then my goal is to not get discouraged and to just keep swimming....just keep going...keep going. :)

Day 3

In the past my down fall has been on the dreaded Day 3 of vacation, I am halfway through the day and feeling pretty good. :)

I think that meal planning has really helped and asking my dad to move all of his candy out of the way has been a big help.  I also thing that starting to do some Cross Fit exercises every day have been good for me as well.  I got my sister involved with CrossFit so that was extremely helpful as well.  Here is what we have done the past 3 days:

Day 1 (Base line)

3 sets of 50 seconds for each exercise with a 10 second rest; total workout 12 minutes

As many of each type of exercise as you can do in the 50 seconds being mindful of form.

Squats
Push Ups (However you can do them girly or otherwise)
Dips (we tried the chair dips the first round and then modified them)
Abs (crunches

Day 2 = 3 sets of 50 seconds and 10 rest; total workout 12 minutes

Squats
Push ups
Abs
Touch downs (kind of a slide where you touch your foot or ankle and then skip over to the other ankle...hard to explain )

Day 3 = 3 sets of 50 seconds and 10 rest; total workout 15 minutes

Squats
Plank (yoga move)
high knees (hold your hands straight out at the waist and bump your palm with your knee)
Abs
Dips

Tomorrow is a rest day and boy do we need it, I am very sore but it is that stretchy-you-know-you-have-worked-out kind of feeling.

And I am officially down a pound since I got here! yay me!