Reflections 9/27

This weekend, I didn't eat overly badly, but I ate a lot of carbs. I know that carbs are my downfall and where I struggle the most. I know I need to bring this up when I talk to the dietitian on Friday.

Today was a good day. I ate well. I worked out. I also helped a friend who is struggling with her journey. It made me realize something. I may have never strove to be an inspiration to people, but I have been. I can use what I've learned to help them with their journeys.

My goals for this week: watch the carbs, watch the sugars, work out daily (M-R) at gym, Friday at home and Saturday if possible.

Small goals until I talk with the dietitian to get a better idea of where I need to be nutritionally.

Fixing Negative Self-Talk

I've been getting daily e-mails from Jillian Michaels' website for a while now. Today's featured article, hit a note with me. How to fix your negative self-talk. The article can be found here.

She says to answer the following questions:

1. Do you have a negative self-image?
2. Do you lack self-confidence?
3. Do you feel powerless?
4. Do you label yourself in self-deprecating ways?

I can answer yes to each of those questions. I may not label myself publicly as she illustrates with the fatso@blank.com e-mail address, but I label myself in my head.

More in detail...

1. Do you have a negative self-image? Am I always looking in the mirror and seeing my flaws? Do I constantly see myself as fat, ugly? Sadly, yes I do. I see my stomach and see the skin and fat there. I see the dangling skin on my arms. I see the fat on my thighs and how they still rub together, even after I've lost 160 pounds. I don't feel pretty. I wear clothes that hide my body because I am ashamed of how I look. I want to look and feel sexy.

2. Do you lack self confidence? As if the above answer doesn't illustrate this, yes I do. Not just with my body and weight, but with life. I am always doubting myself with work. My personal life? I don't have the confidence in myself to make a stand and say "I want to see things change. I want to see this happen." I may think it, but I lack the confidence to do anything about it. I have no confidence in my abilities to do anything properly. I may have met some goals along the road, but they've not helped me have confidence in myself.

3. Do you feel powerless? Jillian describes this as: "Do you feel you have no control over your life?" I don't. Granted, right now I am focused more on personal issues for this than weight related. Weight related, I obsess about it. I count the calories in. I count the calories I burn. I obsess as to why the scale doesn't move. So yeah, there is a powerless feeling there as I "Do what I should but see no results." However, the personal issues, I feel I have no power to stand up for what I want, and more importantly, what I need.

4. Do you label yourself in self deprecating ways? As I stated before, maybe not publicly, but most definitely. I have to catch myself from saying, "I'm the fat one." I've told Jonas before when he's complained about doing exercise with me because he's tired, "Look! I'm fat and I can do it!" If that isn't self deprecating, I don't know what is.

Next she says to answer one more question, "How is this negativity serving you?" Is this the truth about me? No. Does it serve me to meet my goals? Nope. Are they excuses? I don't think so. So how is this negativity serving me? It's not. It's holding me back. Why is my weight stagnant? Because the mental side of weight loss that I need to get control of is holding me back.

Even just today, I was looking at pictures of me from when I was 160 pounds heavier and I thought, hmm, yeah I can tell I've lost some weight. SOME? I've lost a person's worth of weight. I have come so far, yet I can't recognize it. I see it in the numbers, I can see it in the pictures, yet I can't recognize how far I've come. Seeing this negativity written down just proves to me, how much I am the one holding myself back.

Jillian then poses, go back and answer these same questions, using only positive terms.

1. Do you have a negative self-image? I rock. I see myself the happy, thinner person that I have worked so hard to become. I see the inches disappearing from myself, my muscles becoming more defined. I see myself as the beautiful person that I truly am.

2. Do you lack self-confidence? You know what I just did? I graduated college. I have earned a Bachelor's degree. I did it, by myself. I also worked my tail off and lost 75 pounds in a year. Hard work and sweat, and I worked it off. I have also worked hard at learning for my job to better myself for not only me, but so I can do a better job at work.

3. Do you feel powerless? I have control over my life. I know the steps I need to take to get where I want to be and I have the power to take them, to become the person who I want. I have the power to speak up and say what I need to be happy and to become that person.

4. Do you label yourself in self-deprecating ways? I am a superhero and a rock star.

Answering those in a positive tone is hard. I am sure that it will get easier further down the road.

Emotional Eating

I'm an emotional eater. Thankfully, I've been able to control that side of myself (pretty well) for the past year and a half. Everything I've eaten, I've made a decision to eat, I didn't let myself eat out of emotion... Tonight, that broke. I ate because I'm sad. I ate because I'm depressed. I ate because I wanted to fill a hole and I don't know how else to fill it. Stupidly, I ate sugar and then proceeded to drive home. Sugar and I don't get along. At one point, I zoned out I forgot where I was and thought I had passed my exit. My stomach hurts and the food didn't fill the need I have.

I am not to forget this episode, and not to forget how I feel right now.

I need to find a better way to cope with my emotions.

Sickness + Eating Healthy (NOT)

Not being 100% feeling the bestest the past couple of days I've not really looked at what I've eaten, other than just making sure I'm eating something semi healthy. The bonus, I don't really have a lot of unhealthy things in the house. The downside, did you know they deliver pizza to your house if you ask them to?

I know this isn't going to set me back, I had to take care of me (and Jonas) first, not worry about what I was eating.

I started taking my iron pills again. Hopefully that helps with the overall sleepiness and grogginess I've been feeling the past couple of weeks.

Oddly enough, my legs are still sore from Monday's workouts. I stayed home last night with Jonas instead of going to Pilates. I also took a bath, which has helped greatly, as has the rest I've had.

Today, I'm slow cooking some chicken breasts in some pepper mix thingy. I figure I'll shred it later and serve it over rice or on bread or something. Who knows, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I generally don't log food on the weekend, I don't think I'll do a daily blog post on the weekends either. I may change that as I feel the need. Saturday I want to possibly go out to an orchard and get some apples, other than that, I have a baby shower to go to on Sunday.

Monday begins a new week.

Daily Reflection 9/21

Yesterday I had lower grains, only 2 servings, but with planning pasta for supper, I'm okay with that. Foodwise, I came in right at calorie goal.

My body was sore from Monday, but I still went out and did an interval run. I did six intervals of (walk @ 3.5 mph, run @ 5mph) over 25 minutes so each interval was a hair over 2 minutes. I completed the entire thing. I was still sore into the night, but glad I was able to complete my workout.

I got home last night and just relaxed, watching The Biggest Loser with Jonas and Dustin.

Goals for today? Rest. I'm not feeling well and I think I just need rest. I came home sick from work and napped. Jonas is home now and I'll be taking him to the doctor because of his ears being in pain. The rest of the evening will be spent relaxing and going to bed early. I skipped my workout today, but given that I'm still sore and I feel sickly, I am OK with that.

Daily Reflection...

I decided yesterday that I'd like to do a daily reflection as often as I remember. :) I'll be doing these the day after, so I have time to take in the things that occurred and pontificate on them in a more objective manner. (You know, because I tend to be overly emotional when things happen)

Nutrition: Yesterday I met my food goals. Of my five meals:4 had protein, 2 had carbs, 3 had fruit and 3 had good fats. The reason for the additional fruit and less carb is due to the fruit cup that was given to me at my surprise party that work threw in congratulations for my graduation. It was awesome that they got me a fruit cup and cake for everyone else.

Exercise: I got in my circuit workout in the morning at work and then went to pilates in the evening. Needless to say, today, I hurt. But in a good way.

Mentally/Emotionally: Still feeling really good from the weekend graduation and whatnots. Work didn't effect me too much and home was okay. I did leave the dishes overnight in the sink and ended up dealing with them this morning and making myself late, but, that is neither here nor there.

Goals for today: Continue on my track with nutrition. Get an interval run in at the gym. Relax at home tonight with Jonas (and also do laundry and tidy the kitchen).

Took a week off...

This past week, I didn't track food. I may have tracked some exercise... basically I took the week off while I contemplated my next steps.

Would I continue with South Beach Diet?

Would I continue running?

These were my two biggest quandaries.

Here's what I came up with:

Yes, I will continue with the eating principles of South Beach Diet. Why? I feel better with a higher protein diet. I love my veggies and I can stand behind the principles it was built on. My goal is to limit my grain servings to 3 and my fruit to 2 a day. I am going to write a menu to follow and track my food. I am also going to drink more water. Right now, I'm flavoring it with some oranges to add a bit of natural taste. I am not counting the orange toward my fruit serving.

Running. I am going to aim to run twice a week following the increase pace schedule I created. Once during the week and once on the weekend. I will take Jonas with me for at least one of these runs.

I am going to do pilates at least once a week. I want to do this on Mondays with Melissa, yet I may pick up and do it on Thursdays as well if I can deem I can afford the extra expense.

Twice a week I will do a strength training circuit workout. These will be done at the gym at work. I still need to plan these a bit, but that shouldn't be too difficult to do. In the case that I can not complete this at work, I will do either of Jillian's videos to get this workout in when I get home.

I feel good about going forward. I look forward to what the future brings.

Redefining my motivation

This past week has brought me to culmination. I have finished a 5k race. I have completed my coursework for my Bachelor's Degree. Now what? Things I have been working toward are completed and I never sat down and thought of what I wanted to do next. I feel lost. I feel like I have no motivation to continue on this journey. I know that I want to. I also know, that I worked really well when I had goals. I need to determine what short term goals I have. And now, that I'm within 50 pounds of my projected goal weight, I need a long term goal to get there. The problem is, I don't know what those goals should be.

Did I enjoy running enough to continue doing it? Was it really a weight loss booster like everyone has always said it would be? The answer to both of those is "I don't know."

First, running for enjoyment: I enjoyed meeting the plan's goals for the week. I enjoyed the feeling of getting out and exercising. But did I actually enjoy the running itself? Not overly, no.

Secondly, running for weight loss: I lost approximately 7 pounds in the 9 weeks I did the running training for the 5k. While you won't see me complaining about losing 7 pounds, I have to wonder, if I had been doing different training, would I have lost more?

Also, am I eating enough? Was I fueling my body enough for the training I was doing? I don't know. I have plans to meet with a nutritionist the first of October to go over just that. What do I actually need to fuel my body?

So what is my goal? Should I train for a bike ride next instead of a faster run? I do enjoy biking more than I enjoy running. I can answer that without too much thought. With winter approaching, I will have to either use Lincoln Center or the gym at work. Or else, do either strength or cardio at home and do the opposite at the gym at work, throwing in Lincoln Center for maybe a weekly walk/run.

Eating wise, I think I'm just going to maintain healthy eating habits with my 1700 calorie a day goal until I meet with the nutritionist.

Weight wise, I want to get down to 210 and then evaluate myself at that point. However I need to know if that is attainable with as much skin as I have hanging around. As long as my numbers continue to go slowly down, I think I'll be okay with this until I have a firmer grasp on things after consulting with some doctors and physical trainers in the near future.

First though, I want to get my workout plan on track, then my nutrition. Once I do that, the other should fall in line. Right?