Discouraged? Already?

Well, now that I'm all "focused" again and I'm back to tracking my calories I'm in full depressive funk.

I went to the Mayo clinic weight loss site yesterday (some great and useful information) and according to their stats, I should be eating 1200 calories a day. That's so little food it's not even funny.

Today I was looking at my standard "breakfast" for FitDay (I eat the same thing for breakfast every day) and I realized that I hadn't been logging it right. I had the wrong sizing in for how I take my coffee. After I fixed it, I'm eating a bit over 400 calories for breakfast. For a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal. That's 1/3 of what I get to eat a day.

The coffee is gonna have to go. I know that most healthy eating programs tell you to cut caffine out of your diet and I take my sugar with coffee and cream (that's a shout out to the Beastie Boys). So a sugar substitute? skim milk? or just cut it completely and switch over to tea? (I don't drink my tea with anything...) I would save over 100 calories doing that. Can I do that? Am I serious enough to give up my morning cup of coffee?

I'm not sure I am. I've given up so many things that I truely love and my coffee is the one thing I haven't been willing to sacrifice.

Well, I guess I should head to the grocery store to stock up on some fresh veggies... I need to get more fruit and veggies.

The Weekend Report

It was one of those weekends... some good things, and some not so good things.

Saturday I made the decision to start adding some jogging/light running to my treadmill workouts. For a couple of reasons. It'll give me a goal to work towards plus I want to be able to be more efficient with my workouts. I'm also seriously considering a 5K this summer (might not "run" it, but it wouldn't hurt to jog to get more endurance).

I'm doing it slowly. My treadmill gives me "laps". Just like a track, 4 laps is one mile. So I start with a warm up lap: a slow walk that I gradually increase until I hit "brisk". I then keep that brisk pace until I hit the 1/2 mile mark. I then crank it up a little and see how much I can job. My goal right now is to try to do an entire lap (1/4 mile). I'll then set a new goal once that's done.

I do need more goals like this, and I need to do it slowly, as every time I've ever tried to add jogging, I've pushed too hard too fast and usually end up hurting myself. I'm trying to keep it to a comfortable pace right now, more concerned about distance than speed. After I can jog for an entire mile, then I'll work on my speed.

As for the not so successful part of my weekend, I ate crap food on Sunday. I went yarn shopping with friends and had a great time. We went for lunch and I made bad decisions, ate too much of my bad decisions and felt like crap the rest of the day. Bloated and uncomfortable. Today I feel like I'm hung over (probably from the high salt content of the food). Argh. So screw the thinking of "get back on a regular workout schedule then worry about the food". I'm going to do that today.

I'm going to do 1500 calories a day. I'll also make sure I'm getting better balance (ie: more fruits and veggies), watch my saturated fat intake and my sodium intake. More water, less diet sodas.

So that's the goals... I know I can do it, just need to stay focused!

Today's goal. I think I'll use Monday, Wednesday and Friday as my Yourself!Fitness workouts. That will cover my weight training, then I'll work on the treadmill on the other days to reach my jogging goals.

So 45 minutes with Maya is the plan.

Friday

Yesterday's workout went great! I got my 45 minute Y!F workout in. I'm still not sure why she doesn't like me using the weights. I've tried upping the difficulty level, but then she makes it too hard for me to finish. I need something in between.

So what's on schedule for today then? Hmmmm... an other attempt to get three miles on the treadmill, perhaps? Okay, that sounds good. I'm trying to mix up my workouts a bit more.

So far, I'm keeping to at least being active every day this week. Hopefully, I'm getting back in to the swing of things... then I've got to tackle the reduced caloric intake (yuck!)

Food Labels

I'm usually a meticulous food label reader. I try to track my calories and my fat (I glance at the other info... especially the fiber/protein content, but it's the cals and fat that are my priority). I don't usually buy a new product without first checking to see if it fits with in my calorie budget.

I didn't the other day. I bought some Weight Watchers desserts. They sounded like a fun treat, and hey, it's Weight Watchers so it's got to be low calorie, right.

Nope, not at all. I get it home pop it in my freezer, eat one, then think, oh, I've got to check the label so I can track it. 190 calories. For a so-so dessert. A serving of premium ice cream (1/2 cup of Turkey Hill's peanut butter cup) is 180 calories. What???? Now, there was difference in fat, with the WW desert having about half the fat, but when you come down to taste and preference, there's no reason to waste 190 calories on them.

Lesson learned... just because something is marketed as "healthy", I still MUST read the label.

Okay, now let's talk about my workout yesterday... it was an "eh". I did do a mile on the treadmill, but thanks to "one of those days" I never got back to do the other 2 miles.

Today's workout goal:

45 minutes with Maya upper body concentration

So that's the plan for today...

Today's Goal

Okay, I was going to bring back Weigh In Wednesday, but I've been bad about remembering to actually weigh myself. I want to keep it to Wednesday (as it just sounds good, no?) and I want to be consistant on what time of the day I weigh myself.

Since I'm trying to add a little accountability to my workouts, here's today's goal.

1 hour on the treadmill (=3 miles). I do not plan on doing this all at once, but rather in 3-20 minute 1 mile walks.

I did a "weight loss" focus with Maya yesterday and it was a good workout. The day before I used the Eye Toy: Kinetics game. I set up a personal workout with nothing but some of the combat moves. My room is too small for it and the background stuff in the room throws it off. Still don't think I would recommend this program to anyone, but I'll still play with it now and then (and I do like the stretching much better than Y!F).

So for now I'm going to work on keeping to a workout schedule, then I'll start the food reduction. For now, I'll keep on my 1800 cal/day schedule, but probably in a week or two, I'm going to drop that down to about 1500.

Try, try, try again... then try some more

I'm stil looking for my magic bullet and I simply may not find it, but that doesn't ever mean that I'm ever going to throw the towel in and allow myself to go back to the sloth and junk food junkie that I used to be (however, those Baked Cheetos might be too hard to resist).

I'm really going to try to set up some daily goals and accountabity again. The Get Fit Challenge has sort of faded away, but I think we all were successful while we were doing it. It's hard to keep that kind of thing going, so I'm going to try to do it here.

I'm going to try to set up daily goals here and admit if I make them (or not). The whole reason I started blogging my fitness struggles was for accountability. Oh and the "realism" that you don't see the average person dealing with when they decide to change the course of their life.

I really hate those "before and after" things that they use to sell products on TV or even in magazines like Shape. They tell you what they were like before, what was the "trigger" to get them to change lifestyles and what they used to lose the weight and/or become more active. They never mention the tears, the aches, the pains, the setbacks, the challenges, the nasty comments from "helpful" people or those days when you just simply don't want to do it.

That's why I started journaling the process. I had already started the weight loss journey when I started the blog. I had lost maybe 30 lbs or so and I knew that we rarely get "the whole picture". I started 100 lbs overweight and I've lost about 60 lbs of it. It's been tough. Sometimes it's been tougher than others. Sometimes I get super motivated and really focused. I make great food choices, weighing and tracking everything I consume. I track my workouts, I put in a hard effort and I feel great about myself for taking great care of my body.

Then something happens. A plateau? no matter how hard I work or how meticulous my food choices, my weight doesn't budge. I then lose motivation, the workouts are as a high effort (why bother, I don't see them working), I'm not as particular about my food (why can't I just eat what I want. Plus I'm hungry... maybe I'm under eating and that's why the weight isn't coming off). Or I get some kind of injury... pulled groin, twisted knee, back spasms? that throw off my schedule, then I struggle to get back into a regular routine. Or I simply get tired of it being my entire focus and I want to focus on something more fun: like knitting or game playing.

Who knows, but I never completely throw the towel in. I don't suddenly eat bunches of junk food (mainly because I don't buy it... well, except for Baked Cheetos) I still do a minimal workout. It is a lifelstyle change and some of the changes have stuck.

I also think that I need to evaluate my expectations. Now that Matt is at a healthy weight and racing, I've added extra pressure to myself to "catch up" or to justify my weight to him. That's not right. I've got to go at my own pace and lose the weight as my body allows. My body is different than his, and yes, every year it has gotten harder and harder to lose the weight.

My goal of being 125 lbs before my 40th birthday is still a very reasonable goal, but I can't wait until the last year to lose these last 30 lbs. Right now I just want to break that 150 lb plateau before the end of this year. The question is now that I know how much work and sacrifice it takes, can I find the strength to do it?

The Psychological Battle

I'm struggling quite a bit with my body image and my dedication/commitement to this whole "weight loss" thing.

I'm at the point that nothing I do feels that it's enough. Yet, I can't seem to make the right decisions or work hard enough.

Matt has gotten a full blown case of the chicken pox (yes, at 37 he's finally got them) and he's doing a workout on the trainer with a TrainRight video. There's something really wrong with that.

Or there's something really wrong with me. If I had chicken pox welts all over my body, there is no way in hell I would be doing a workout.

I did a 30 minute "just try the EyeToy: Kenetic combat routines and see what ones I like". It kicked my ass. I'm tired and not a little frustrated. I really don't want to do any more workout today. Matt thinks I should walk on the treadmill while he's working out. He's right, I'm sure, as I know that I need the 60 minutes workout if I want to drop the last 30-40 lbs.

I just don't want to do it. So now I'm still feeling like a failure because I'm not as dedicated as he is. I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself knowing that I'll never embrace workouts like that. It will always be a struggle for me to push myself physically and I'm disappointed in myself.

It seems it's time to look somewhere for some positive re-inforcement. I'm just not sure where that is.

National Body Challenge

The Discovery Health channel has been doing the Body Challenges for a couple of years. The first one was life changing for me. That's no exageration. After the initial airing, they did an entire weekend marathon of the show and I watched every single episode. I then taped it.

There was something that I really connected with and the people struggling to lose the weight. It showed how hard it was (most don't... it's the before and ta-da the after.. not the emotion or physical struggle that changing into a healthier body is).

They've done several others since that first one and I didn't connect quite the same way... and we won't even discuss the disaster that was "Health Cops". It showed why you can't turn a switch on people and they become healthy. It also made me realize how hard finding a good "trainer/nutritionist" was going to be. I wouldn't have wanted to work with any of the coaches on that show.

So anyway, back to the Body Challenge. This year they're following entire families for 8 or 12 weeks. I really like that they're dealing with whole families (it's gotta be a lifestyle change, which means everyone in the house has to be on board). They're using a "scare" tactic with health issues, which I like (I'll go into that a bit more later...) and they're teaching people how to eat the foods they enjoy, but to make them healthier (one of the things that didn't work with "Health Cops"... you can't feed people food they don't like and expect them to stick with the program). Of course the best thing? They're including the kids...

Anyway, as I said one of the things I really like is the medical check ups they do at the beginning and at the end. We, as a society, need to get past the "vanity" issue of being at a healthy weight. This show focuses on the health risks of being fat. The 33 year old woman who's blood pressure was so high the doctor wanted to put her on medication right then and there. The type II diabetes, the high body fat %... now they didn't do a cholestrol check, as they did in the first one, but it's been mentioned. Now we all want to look good, but we still need to remember that one of the reasons being at a healthy weight is "sexier" is that it's also a sign of "healthier".

Even now, at 157 lbs, I'm at an unhealthy weight. Yes, I've gotten my blood pressure and my cholestrol into acceptable ranges, but I still am putting a lot of strain on my joints and heart by lugging around a good 30-40 lbs. I should weigh between 103 to 127 lbs. 157 lbs puts me in the close to obese catagory and puts me at higher health risks.

The new Body Challenge has also done something I really like. They are bringing in professional chefs to help the families make some of their favorite foods healthier. Especially the more ethnic foods. Food is one of the important aspects of life. We connect to our heritage, our family and our celebrations thru food. You can't feed people a diet that doesn't consider their heritage. However, almost all meals can be made healthier... cutting down fat and kicking up the seasonings.

So thanks to Discovery Health Channel for waking me up all those years ago. I realized how hard I had to work, the food choices I had to make and the fact it's a lifestyle change, not a "diet".

Hard Work

Well, after the disasterous workout with the Kinetics program, I decided to pop Yourself!Fitness in and do a little cardio with Maya. 30 minutes to be exact.

Wow, it was tough. I got my heart rate over 170 (that's the highest it's ever been) and I was able to keep up, didn't feel like a dunce and she didn't tell me that I wasn't doing well enough (nor did she give me a zero score on a workout that was too difficult for me).

A definite confidence buider, unlike the Kinetics, which completely squashed my self esteem. I don't mind frustrating games, I actually rather like them. In my games, not in my workout. I just don't have the physical capabilities to do something like that.

So I'm sort of torn what to do. There are some aspects of Kinetics that I like, but I don't like the scoring aspect (or the "you're not doing well enough, concentrate" kind of crap that it tells me when I screw up and hit the wrong colored orb). I guess I'll just not bother with the "program" and do indiviual select workouts with it.

Wednesday Weigh In

Not much to report on the Wednesday Weigh In. No loss, but no gain. I'm not surprised. I'm not feeling like I'm doing enough exercise right now. I'm slowly increasing the number of workouts, but I'm still trying the Eye Toy: Kinetics and I'm just not in love with it.

Basically it's the negative reinforcement that I simply can't deal with. If I hit the wrong color orb or move in the wrong direction, I get penalized. It also pressures you to get "higher scores". I don't do sports for a reason. I don't like that kind of pressure. I just want to workout and feel good about myself. Not like I'm a failure.

I'm going to continue with the 12 week program as it's set up, but I've got to do more than it's saying. First because the workouts aren't cardio-wise difficult. The difficulty is in the game play (I would rather leave that to my games, not my workouts).

So even tho' I already did the Kinetics workout, I'll do a cardio with Maya this afternoon. Maybe this program has given me a new appriciation for her workouts. At least it might make me feel better about myself... not something that the Kinetics promotes.

The Continueing Evaluation of Eye Toy: Kinetics

So I'm now into my 4 or 5th workout with Eye Toy: Kinetics and I'm getting a better picture of how I'm going to like it.

I love the warm up, the focus stuff (I've done upper body and the Tai Chi) and the after workout stretch. The actual eye toy "games" for cardio simply suck.

There's several major flaws. One is the inherent need to get a good score... I find I'm more concerned about that than getting a good workout. That means that I'm not getting a good workout. I'm too worried about ducking and hitting to move in the right way to get my heart rate up. I get discouraged when I screw up the "game" and again, that effects my work out.

An other flaw? they're short. Too short for me to burn enough calories or to use this program as a stand alone.

As I mentioned in my last blog, I'm not the sort of person that enjoys negative feedback. Since this is a "game" I get too many "mistakes" with the cardio sections. It's not enjoyable and it just frustrates me. So again, that doesn't push me to get a better cardio workout.

So it's a mixed bag as a workout. It's almost like I want to use it to warm up, then switch to Yourself!Fitness for some hard blasting cardio, then switch back to the Kinetics for a cool down.

I need to bump up my workouts again. I've been pretty good about my consistancy again, which is good. Now I need to work a bit harder. As I did do a Wednesday Weigh In. I'm at 157 lbs. That's going backwords (lowest has been 154 lbs). I know three pounds isn't a lot of weight, but that's going to take me an awful lot amount of work to lose. One pound is a lot of work and that's three pounds extra that I know have to lose that I had already lost.

So in typical fashion, it's a two steps forward, one step back for me. I should be getting used to it by now, eh?