Keepin' It Real - Food/Weight Log

3/16/09

Weight: 147

Breakfast: Coffee with powdered cream and sugar, string cheese (I was up late, and didn’t have milk for cereal, so I grabbed and went. For shame.)

Snack: Did not get hungry, so waited for lunch.

Lunch: Bowl of chili with 4 small wheat crackers and cheese. 1 Now and Later and 2 pieces of horehound candy.

Snack: Banana

Dinner: Small bowl of beans with beef, 1 piece of irish soda bread, 2 marshmallow peeps.

Exercise: 30 minutes in the evening on Wii Fit, 30 minutes of gardening (I feel like I should put exercise in scare quotes on this one... Didn't feel much like exercise)

Water: 1 glass small at work, 1 large glass at home - Deficiency of at least 4 glasses

I'm back. Again.

It’s commitment time.

I’m feeling as huge as a house lately, because I’m not getting exercise or eating within the parameters of someone my size. Therefore, I have gained weight. Not a ton, but at least 5 pounds. Just enough to make all my jeans super tight, and my self esteem hit the bottom floor.

So it’s time to get serious.

Before the wedding, I developed some very respectable eating habits. I wasn’t dieting like crazy but I kept a few rules:

• No cream sauces. Therefore, no cream soups. I didn’t even keep cream in the fridge at home, so as not to tempt myself.
• Eat 5 times a day – Breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, and dinner. No more, no less.
• Make good choices at lunch – tomato-based soups, salads with no pasta or mayo-based mixtures (chicken or tuna salad, e.g.), and fish were always allowed.
• Whatever we have for dinner, have less of it than I really want. I’ll still be full, but I won’t be bursting, as I am most of the nights after dinner.
• Eating out is a privilege I reserve for other people paying – i.e. unless we’re invited by Greg’s or my parents, we don’t go to restaurants. Well, maybe once every two weeks.
• Pizza is off the table. We’ve had two pizzas in the last week and a half. This is bad news for my body.

So starting today, I make those good choices again. Starting today, starting this very minute, I will be eating better. I’m going to cut down on the pastas and rices and breads. I’ll have extra helpings of the veggies, and do my best to make fresh foods. I’ll make good choices and stop with the desserts (which have become daily and overwhelming).

Then there’s the exercising. For the past three weeks, I’ve been awful about it. So it’s time to make some commitments there, too.

1. Two nights a week, I will go to the gym and work up a good sweat. Running, step classes, body pump and serious power-walking all apply. Elliptical machines do not (I let myself slack too much on them.)
2. I have two pilates DVDs and Wii Fit now. I have no reason not to get up in the mornings and do a mini-workout. (Other than my extreme desire to sleep in.) I have to start getting up.
3. There are opportunities throughout my day to get in a little bit of exercise. Pushups against the bathroom sink at work, a walk with Tonks in the evening before or after dinner, squats or lunges while I read for class – I need to use these to their full advantage. They really make all the difference.

Oh, and I also need to use this blog the way I intended to at the beginning. To post weekly. To make goals. To really pressure myself into doing better. That’s another one I gotta work on.

So here we go, the goals for this week, Monday through Sunday:

1. Get in a real weekend workout. Really.
2. Get up early two mornings this week and either do Wii Fit Yoga or Pilates.
3. Make good choices 4 of the 5 lunches at work this week.
4. Record my meals – not necessarily the calories – and the portions I eat. Decide later whether to post these online.

Wish me luck!

Healthy Living and Money

In theory, healthy eating is so easy. I know what’s healthy. I know what’s not. Cottage Cheese – great. Cream Cheese – not great. All-white chicken breast without the skin – great. Corned Beef with all the fat – not so good.

When I walk through the lunch line, my eyes flip over things and I see exactly what I should be eating. A small bowl of chili with beans, non-fat yogurt and a piece of fruit. Talapia with a green chili salsa, steamed vegetables and a side salad. But what ends up on my plate? Beef stew in a bread bowl. Pizza. Cheesy, creamy soups and anything with a layer of fat floating on top.

If I were rich, eating healthy would be easy. A cinch. Some days it’s just so hard to get boring fish for $5, when you know that a baked potato with everything is only 85 cents. If I were rich, however, that wouldn’t matter. I’d eat it contentedly. Without complaint. Because I like the way the fish tastes, just not when I know it is $4 more than I’d like to spend.

In fact, fitness altogether would be simpler if I were rich. I’d have a part time job, and make sure I got in exercise each day during the hours I would normally be working a full-time job. I could buy fitness equipment for my home, including a treadmill and a Pilates machine-thingy. I could hire a personal trainer who would then come to my home and ensure I’m actually using the equipment and getting the exercise every day. And forget just buying the food, I’d hire a chef to prepare my meals for me and bring them to my home, so that they would require only minimal preparation.

Yes, if I were rich, I’d probably have an easier time being fit. But what’s the joy in having no challenge?

With My Tail Between My Legs

I have this blog so that I will feel at least slightly guilty when I don’t update it regularly, and when I have a fitness misstep, I feel the need to confess it here. In front of my many (ahem) readers.

My fitness goals have sort of gone kaput in the last week and a half. I’ve done a few pilates workouts with my new videos (perfect for cold mornings), but I haven’t made it to the gym once. This has to change. Also in desperate need of changing? My morning schedule. This morning I did not peel myself out of bed until 7:20. That gave me precisely 25 minutes to dress (a 20-minute endeavor in itself), do my makeup, pour the coffee, feed the dog, let the dog out, put everything in my purse, grab a morning snack, hug Greg and get out the door in one piece. Usually I put in a breakfast as well as all of the aforementioned, but this morning it just didn’t happen. I grabbed some breakfast at work, and ate it while sipping on my coffee and working on leftover items from last week.

This is not good. By the time I get to work, I’ve been awaked for less than an hour, I’m running on double-empty, and I haven’t had time to get my mind up to speed. It would be so much better for my sanity if I were up at 6:00, did Pilates, showered, dressed and took my time with breakfast. Even if I got up at 6:30, I would still have time for a relaxed breakfast, time to iron my clothes and a moment to reflect on my husband as he drools on the sheets in his slumber (he rarely gets out of bed before 7:45, and leaves the house precisely 15 minutes later looking chipper and ready to go).

Today I’m running on empty. I stayed up until midnight last night (very late for me), and had an immensely difficult time getting up this morning. Now it’s 4:00 p.m. and I’m crashing. Hard. And I still have 3 hours of babysitting to do this evening…

So, in the interest of time, I will give you my goals for the week in no particular order:

1. Get up at least 3 mornings this week to do Pilates before work.
2. Go to the gym at least 3 times this week to do cardio fitness
3. Make one healthful meal this week that I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty about eating.

Goal Setting/Update

I did pretty well last week. Let’s look at my goals:

1. Go to the gym 3 times this week, and spend at least 30 minutes of each visit on cardio
Done! I went Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday. And each time I did do 30 minutes of cardio. Sadly, at least once, that was all I did.

2. Have one of those 3 visits be a morning workout – before work on a weekday.
Tuesday morning I got my lazy butt out of bed and actually made it to the gym before 6:15! Yay me!

3. Make my arms sore once this week.
Um…. Oops?

I did pretty well, considering. This week is going to be harder. I babysit this evening, I want to watch the inauguration tomorrow evening and Thursday night, Greg and I have signed up to tour a local brewery (yum!) after work. So that leaves only Wednesday evening and Friday evening for workouts. Blah.

But, good news! I entered in a drawing on my favorite fitness website – www.thatsfit.com – and won Pilates DVDs! I’m really excited, as I’ve never tried Pilates. I’m finally living in a house with a big enough living room to accommodate a workout with a video. They should arrive early next week, so I’ll be psyched (wow – did the 80’s just come back?) to try them out. I’m wondering if maybe I can work up enough discipline to get up in the morning and work out in the living room with the DVDs. If I could do that two mornings a week, and then work out at the gym 3 times a week on top of that, I think I would be really starting to shape up. We’ll see.

So, in the interest of looking ahead, I’m going to get my second week of goals.

1. Get up at least 1 morning this week to workout before work, but shoot for 2 mornings.
2. Make my arms sore at least once this week. (Really, do it. Or it will be a goal again next week.)
3. Take a spinning class once this week.
4. Drink a glass of water each night after I get home.

That’s it! We’ll see how it goes…

La-hoo-Za-Herrrr

I’m weirdly addicted to The Biggest Loser. I’ve told this to very few people, because most people who know me know that I am vocal about my hatred for reality shows. I really, really dislike reality shows.

Except for Biggest Loser. And Project Runway. They are my exceptions.

(I swear if you try to get me to watch a whole episode of MTV reality shows or anything akin to Survivor, I will claw you.)

But I think The Biggest Loser gives many people unhealthy expectations. This is a show were morbidly obese people lose 15 and 20 pounds in a single week. And unless you working out 8 hours a day, that’s all but impossible. On the Biggest Loser, they are doing a lot more work than they let on. Their “last-chance workout” as they call it probably lasts over 4 hours. But for us, it’s a 3-minute blip on the radar.

But the thing that I absolutely love about the show is that it’s all about retraining the mind, the emotions and the habits. Yes, they work out a lot. Yes, they have crazy trainers who scream at them. But they also are taught that you really can’t eat only cheese and meat and somehow magically lose 30 pounds. They’re taught that what you put into your mouth you have to sweat out later.

Another thing I love about the show is that it doesn’t dumb down how hard it is to work out. How much you really have to WANT it to do it right. People cry, they grimace, they whine, they collapse, they cough and sputter and look like they really wish they could die. I certainly don’t advocate exercise this crazy if you’re working at a normal pound-a-week pace. But at least it illustrates a point to all the other couch potatoes: Losing weight isn’t easy. It doesn’t come in pill form, and it probably hurts if you’re doing it right.

Unfortunately, even this show isn’t all sunshine and lollipops. I overheard one obese woman talking to another this morning as our company conducted “health risk assessments” for each employee. Part of the assessment was a height/weight/BMI calculation, and as one overweight woman was being shown her BMI, the other said,

“Oh, just go watch The Biggest Loser. You’ll feel a LOT better about yourself.”

Hrmph. I guess some people will use anything as a vehicle for rationalization. Awesome.

Facts.

In the interest of transparency, I am going to give you some unsolicited information. I’m baring my soul here, people, have the decency to listen.

• I’m 25, turning 26 in January.
• I am 5’6.5”
• I weigh 148 pounds
• My BMI is 23.5

So, looking at these numbers, I seem like a normal-sized person. Not overweight, not underweight, but normal. And I am. I’m not interested in fitness as a fix to a problem, I’m interested in fitness as prevention.

You see, my mother is 59 and obese. She’s been that way for most of my life. She’s always been overweight, but as she gets older, her weight becomes more of a problem. Diabetes, joint problems, high cholesterol and heart conditions run in the family. Both of my mother’s parents died young – mid-50s and mid-60s. So you understand why I worry about her.

And in turn, I worry about myself. My mother was a wonderful mother to my brother and I, and made sure we got exposure to a variety of fruits and vegetables. I never went hungry, and I certainly didn’t see fast-food as a staple around our house. She made healthful meals that introduced me to a way of eating that has kept with me throughout my life. Even now, I have little interest in fast food. But neither does my mother, and her weight has gotten the best of her.

The only difference I can see between the two of us is exercise. My mother, with her bad knees, bad feet, and other physical problems, has a hard time doing any exercise that has impact. Even walking hurts her after a while. She’s doing her best to work around it, but I don’t want to see myself in that place.

Hence, at 23.5 BMI, I am already having a little panic attack. A BMI of 25 is considered overweight, and I have merely 1.5 little points to make it to that place. That’s only 8 pounds away from where I am right now. I gain 8 pounds, and I’m in the “overweight” category. It just won’t do. I can’t have only a cushion of 8 pounds. It has to be more.

So, hence I want to get into shape. Lose around 10 pounds, and get myself to a BMI of 22 or less. That, to me, is healthy. It’s in the middle of the range, giving me a healthy cushion between me and the “overweight” BMI of 25.

So there you have it. That’s why a 25-year old with a healthy weight is so concerned about fitness. The more proactive I am, the greater chance I have of being a healthy 30-year old, a healthy 40-year old, and a healthy 50-year old. I want to see what life looks like when your 80, so I’m not going to let a lack of fitness be the reason I don’t.