Where am I? Volume 11 (Alternate title: There was a little girl …)

It’s Tuesday – time to take a step back and get a feel for where I am in my weight loss health and fitness journey.

Weeelll … do any of you remember the poem:

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good
She was very, very good*
And when she was bad she was horrid.

Basically, I’m that little girl.

Well, minus the curl … my hair is straight as a board.

But “very good” and “horrid” describe the past week for me, when it comes to health and fitness.

Let’s get the “horrid” unpleasantness out of the way first. My eating. Ugh! The past week was horrid, at least until yesterday. I ate junk and crap, and then some more junk. I stress-ate on Friday and mindlessly ate socially on Saturday and Sunday.

Friday I pigged out on cookies and indulged in fried goodies food; Saturday I ate too many pancakes with full-calorie syrup and butter and later drank lots of beer and ate fried chicken strips; and Sunday I had lasagna, then went to a hockey game and ate (I kid you not) a couple cups of popcorn, a small plate of tortilla chips and salsa, 1 beer, 2 Dr. Peppers, part of a cookie, some cotton candy, and part of piece of cake. My stomach ached Sunday night, not surprisingly.

And also not surprisingly, the scale reading isn’t looking the way I’d like it to look at the moment. It’s above the maintenance range I’d set for myself. I’m over my 134 “stay below this weight” target, and my past-week average is over 133. The numbers did drop today vs. yesterday, and I’m back on track now so I expect it to get back down into my goal range in the next few days. But MAN! I lost it there for a few days.

Thank goodness that a few bad days don’t undo months and months worth of work.

And, from a health and fitness perspective, the past week was not all bad. Despite my complete lack of being on-plan from an eating perspective and slightly over goal, I had a very, very good week when it came to exercise.

In fact, I even earned my exercise badge:


My goal last week was to do two couch-to-5k runs during the week, and run an official 5k on Saturday. I also wanted to do one full-body strength training workout and, later in the week, an upper-body strength training workout. I did it! I did all of it!

And in running the 5k, I beat my goal in terms of time. I’d walked a 5k in the past (with an occasional jog thrown in) at around 45 minutes. That time was without any real training – I was doing step aerobics so I wasn’t completely out of shape, but I wasn’t training to run or walk at all. I decided I’d try to beat that by 10 minutes, and aimed to come in at or around 35 minutes. When I did my test run on Wednesday I hit just over 35 minutes, and when I actually ran the 5k on Saturday my chip time was 32:08.

Not only did I meet my goal, I beat it! Woo hoo! And I officially graduated from the couch to 5k program – Hooray!

So, looking back at the past week, it wasn’t a bad week, but it wasn’t a good week either. My goal for this week is to be able to look back and say it was a good week.

Goals for the week:
- Eat on plan from Monday-Friday (Monday went well – yay!)
- Go to Mexico for vacation on Saturday and eat reasonably (but not perfectly)
- Do cardio and strength training Monday (done), and then run 30 minutes on Wednesday and Friday (or Saturday in Mexico … I’m aiming for Friday, though). I want to get an upper body workout in before the end of the week, too.

I’ll be away next week on Tuesday “where am I” check-in day, since my husband and I are going to Mexico for vacation for a week to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. We leave Saturday and return the next Saturday. I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing week. I’m actually excited to be going to a place that I can wear a bikini. My body is by no means perfect (far from it!), but I’ve worked really hard on it, and it looks better than it’s looked in a long, long, long time.

My plan for the week of vacation is to eat reasonably (but I have no delusions that I’ll be perfect), and to do 3x cardio and 2x strength training (with one strength session being only upper body if my cardio is a 30+ minute run). There’s a fitness center, but I’m hoping there’s also a place for me to run outside. Cross your fingers for me.

I’ll post a couple times before I leave, but for those of you who are Healthy You Challenge Tuesday-only check-in-ers, have a great couple weeks!



* Apparently this line should actually be “She was very good indeed,” but that’s not how I learned the poem. I’m mis-quoting it the way I learned it. Also, this poem was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Who knew!?!

Where am I? Volume 10 (Alternate title: Look at the bright shiny badges!)

It’s time to ask the question I ask every Tuesday … Where am I in my weight loss health and fitness journey?

Except I didn’t ask that question for the past two weeks. I was MIA for a little while. You can see my last couple posts for an explanation of that mess. The important thing is that I’m back now.

Anyway, where am I? I am at goal and maintaining! Woo hoo! I made goal a few weeks ago, and I’ve been able to successfully maintain the weight loss, staying within my goal weight range. So, a badge is in order.



And actually, come to think of it, even though I’m maintaining I technically get another badge or three, because my weight has crept down a little within my goal range and within the past week my exercise has been on track. Let’s look at the numbers:

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 20.8 lbs (152.4 vs. 131.6). Hooray, a 20 pound badge!

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 35.4 lbs (167 vs. 131.6). Woo hoo, a 35 pound badge!

Exercise: While I was MIA my exercise fell off some … I wasn’t feeling up to working out as much, unfortunately. I did get at least one run in per week (although one week it was just 1 mile – not an official C25k workout) and one weight training session in per week. But I definitely didn’t do as much as I would have liked.

Last week, my goal was 3x cardio via couch to 5k workouts and 2x strength training. And I did it!

I’m on the last week of the couch to 5k program. Wow. Yesterday I ran 30 minutes. THIRTY MINUTES! I never thought I could do that. In that 30 minutes I went approximately 2.8 miles (I'd definitely be over 3.1 if I included my 5 minutes of warm-up walk and 5 minutes of cool-down walk, but I'm not counting that). Tomorrow I’m going to measure my run by distance, and I'll run a little further - at least 3.0 miles. And then my real-deal 5k is Saturday! After that I’ll be an official couch to 5k graduate. Woo hoo!

So my exercise goal for this week is my 3x/week couch to 5k runs, including running my 5k on Saturday. I also want to do 2x strength, but I’m going to say only upper body for my 2nd workout, since I don’t want to mess with my ability to run my 5k.

Wish me luck on the 5k! I wish all of you luck on your weight loss and fitness journeys, too.

Body fat & other test results - woo hoo!

Yesterday I went to the gym and got a follow-up fitness test. I was originally tested back in October, right before I started working out with the personal trainer once a week. The plan was to re-test in January. The assumption was that I’d be at my goal weight in January – let me just say HA! to that. But anyway, now I am at goal so it was time for the re-test.

I am pretty darned happy with the results of the test. Check it out:


Some observations:

• Based on my body age, my husband is officially robbing the cradle. OK, maybe not, 15 years isn’t THAT much, but still. I’m a young’un.


• My husband was concerned that my blood pressure was too low, but I looked it up and I’m fine.


• I’m disappointed that my biceps don’t seem that much stronger. I can only lift 3 more pounds? Come on, really? That just seems downright WRONG to me. And how annoying is it that bicep strength is the only strength measure? Hello … I have a LOT of other muscles. But nevertheless, that’s the measure. I think I’ll be exercising my biceps a little more in preparation for my next fitness assessment. Full body workout, schmull body workout, I always say. (Kidding, I’m kidding.)


• My body fat is nice and low but not too low … either the low end of normal or in the athlete range depending on what chart you look at. I do wonder if it's accurate, though. Not to geek out on you or anything, but I really wish she'd repeat the test over a few days so we can assess test-retest reliability here. I'm half tempted to see how much it would cost to get a DEXA test done.


• My weight ALWAYS measures higher at the gym than at home. I figure that’s not a concern since when I weigh myself at home it’s the morning (vs. the evening at the gym) and I’m near-nekkid (vs. wearing workout clothes and running shoes at the gym).


• I wasn’t focusing on flexibility, but somehow I got more flexible anyway.


• In my real age, I got a year older. Dammit.


• All in all, those are big changes!

Yay!

In other news, my weight is 0.2 lbs above my goal (looking at the past 7-day average). I think this is completely annoying and I’ve decided the answer is to change my goal to “below 134” because I’m perfectly comfortable with how I look at the moment, I'm making healthy eating choices, this is normal fluctuation, and, quite frankly, to think I’m over goal right now is nuts. SO THERE. I thumb my nose at you, you stupid scale.

Where am I? Volume 9 (Alternate Title: Second verse, same as the first)

It’s Wednesday, so it’s time to ask the question I ask every Tuesday … Where am I in my weight loss health and fitness journey?

Yeah, I’m late this week. Oops.

Anyway, where am I? Well, as I mentioned yesterday, I am AT GOAL in terms of weight! Yay! The last few weeks I've been de-emphasizing weight because it was making me crazy to focus on the scale when the numbers were decreasing soooooo slooooowly, but this week I’m all about talking about weight. I’m at goal! All my pants fit again, shopping is fun again, I’m satisfied when I look in the mirror. There’s nothing crazy-making about being at goal.

The thing is, there’s nothing FINAL about being at goal either.

This isn’t the end of anything, really. I get to eat a wee little bit more, I increase the calories some, but otherwise I have to keep doing what I’ve been doing. Don’t get me wrong, I have a sense of accomplishment about reaching goal and I’m going to reward myself for getting here, but I’m also well aware that the journey isn’t over. Heck, it’s hardly begun.

I’ve been at goal before. Actually, I’ve been at goal a couple times. I’ve never STAYED at goal. When it comes right down to it, my big overriding goal isn’t to be at my goal weight, it’s to stay at my goal weight. That, for me, is the true challenge.

So, a quick moment of celebration and badge-tasticness:

(It says at goal and maintaining … I am at goal, and since I’m looking at the average weight from the past week, I’m calling that maintaining. Yay for a pretty badge!)

Now, back to the business of living a healthy life, because the journey isn’t over.

On to EXERCISE!

Exercise: My goal for last week was 3x cardio via couch to 5k workouts and 2x strength training. Uhhh, yeah. I’m glad I got that “goal” badge because I sure wasn’t going to get the exercise badge this week. I did 1x couch to 5k and 0x strength training. Thank goodness for new weeks – this week has already gone better than last week.

And thank goodness my slackerness last week doesn’t seem to have affected my ability to run 25 minutes. I did OK with my run on Monday (which is, for me, the start of the new week). It was hard, but I took it slow and it wasn’t impossible. I’ll do a 25 minute run again today – wish me luck! Today will be couch to 5k week 7 day 3 … later this week I start week 8 and increase my time to 28 minutes. YIKES.

Oh yeah, and let’s do the official numbers on the weight loss:

Weight loss since last Tuesday: 0.8 lbs (134.0 vs. 133.2).

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 19.2 lbs (152.4 vs. 133.2). Hmmm, I bet I’ll get a 20 lb badge at some point. We’ll see. I’m happy with my weight right now, but it never hurts to see a bright shiny new badge, and it falls in my weight goal range …

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 33.8 lbs (167 vs. 133.2).

I want to thank all of you for your support on this journey and helping me celebrate my new at-goal status. It means a lot to me. I’m looking forward to having all of you join me here in maintenance-land!

Welcome to the land of DUH.

If you've been reading my blog, you know I weigh in daily. (If you haven't, here's the background on that.) Well, when I stepped on the scale this morning, I was surprised to see a number below 135.

WOW.

I guess it's silly that I found today's number surprising. My weight has been varying slightly, up and down, like it always does. And like it always does when I'm on plan, it generally trends downwards. (No, I don't always lose, but I always lose over time. When I'm on plan, that is.) I've been up and down near 135-136 for a while, so it should be no surprise that I got below 135, right?

But it was a surprise. It was a pleasant shock to the system to see that number. I don't think it had hit me before. I'm really close to goal!

I'm going to be on maintenance soon!

Officially off my arse - Couch to 5k

I have to tell ya, my realization yesterday that I've lost over 100 pounds is haunting me. How crazy is that? All the yo-yoing up and down ... all the weight lost, then re-gained, then lost, then re-gained ... I knew I'd followed that pattern to some extent through the years, but when I saw that number it was shocking. SHOCKING. It shouldn't have been shocking, but it was.

Man, if you've done the yo-yo thing and you want a serious reality check, add up those numbers. Damn.

Just think, if I'd lost the weight and then kept it off through eating well and working out, I'd be slender and super-healthy right now. Or, on the other hand, what if I'd lost all that weight at once. I'd weigh 65 pounds or so. Yikes!

Then this morning, I read this post over at Athena's blog, and it drove the truth home.

I have been making the choice to yo-yo like that. Every time I lose the weight and then don't keep it off, I've made the choice to let that happen. Because sitting on my arse is a choice, and eating piles of pasta is a choice, and having that second piece of cake is a choice, and dealing with stress and sadness by eating is a choice, and not tracking my food intake is a choice.

I choose not to do that anymore, thank you very much.

Instead, after work today I chose to go out and run Week 1 Day 1 of the Couch to 5k plan. I've been thinking about starting for ages, and there's no better time than the present. I ran, and I enjoyed it, and Sunday I'm going to go get new shoes just like Ashley.

I choose to be that crazy person running down the street in the cold, not the crazy person who keeps losing weight and gaining it all back.

Today's daily weigh-in. What? Daily?

Well, my daily weigh-in shows a downward movement. I'm sure some of that is water weight, but hopefully some of it is also a real change. I finally got my eating back on track yesterday - hooray! I didn't exercise, but the plan for today is eating well AND exercise. My body might explode from shock.

I know Weight Watchers recommends weekly weigh-ins, but I weigh-in daily. Years ago when I was working on losing 35 lbs, the weekly weigh-ins worked well for me. But at that point, I was all about LOSING. I didn't dedicate much brain-power to thoughts of maintaining. Now I've got my eye on maintaining, and from what I've read a big key to maintaining is daily weigh-ins. So even though I'm trying to lose weight now, I'm weighing in daily to prepare for maintaining the weight loss. I want to be in the daily weigh-in habit.

I'm not pulling this daily weigh-in idea out of my (larger than ideal) ass. Here are some articles on research which support the daily weigh-in game plan:

• Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
• Annals of Behavioral Medicine (heh heh heh, I said annals)
• International Journal of Behavior, Nutrition and Physical Activity

I'm not saying everyone should jump on the scale daily. I'm not one of those preachy types who assumes what is good for me is good for the world. I am, however, a research-geek. It's true - I believe in well designed research, and the research suggests this is a good plan for most folks. Now, it isn't a good plan for people with eating disorders. And if you really honestly can't handle the daily weight fluctuations up and down, it probably isn't a good plan for you.

You may be able to learn to deal with the daily weight fluctuations, though. I had a little bit of a problem with the daily weight fluctuations at first, back in October when I started losing again. What helped me work through it was some positive self-talk and watching the trend. Even though my weight went up and down through a two week period, it always trended downwards, and I always saw a drop from the beginning to end of the period. Well, that's what I saw if I was following the Weight Watchers plan.

I also began to learn what behavior affected my daily weigh-in results ... after a long hard exercise session I might see an initial spike in weight the next day but then a nice big drop a day or two later. If I eat sushi or Chinese food or any other high-sodium treat I'll gain some water weight. If I travel by plane my weight goes up a bit (even if I eat well), but then it goes back down after a day or two (and what is up with that? Do you see that, too? Does anyone know what causes that? It is a mystery to me ... but that's the pattern I've seen). Learning those types of patterns and telling myself that if I'm working the Weight Watchers program the program works (it's true!) helped me get comfortable with the daily weigh-ins.

Anyway, if you're eating disorder-free, here's my suggestion. If you weigh-in weekly, you might consider weighing in daily. It may not work for you, but it might be worth at try. It appears to help folks maintain, and if it helps folks maintain, that's a good pattern to learn, right? Because I can tell you, losing the weight is great, but gaining it back sucks. Isn't losing it and keeping it off what it's really all about?

That's my plan this time around. Losing the weight and keeping it off.