Keeping lifestyle constant through transition is one of the hardest things.

One pattern I’ve noticed over the years is that it is extremely hard to keep up with healthy lifestyle choices when I go through a transition period in my life.

Sometimes I count on the transition as motivation – if I can just make it to the end of school, I will work out and get fit all summer / if I can just make it through the summer I will work out and get fit while I’m at school… I’ve been on both ends, starting off a new chapter with the best of intentions each time.

I’m at a new chapter in my life yet again.  This time I’ve been doing it right.  I’ve been watching my eating, exercising lots, and even losing weight.  Now I’m at another transition.  This time I’m graduating school, moving on from academia for the foreseeable future, and I’m not sure how to incorporate fitness/healthy living into my new routine.  I know that I have to, but I don’t know what that looks like.

So looking forward, I have to remember: fitness right now is a top priority, and there are no excuses for not keeping it up.

Here’s the plan so far:

• Bike to work at least 3 times per week!  Make exercise part of the commute.  Soon enough it will be routine requiring almost no will power.  My only concern is I’ll be really hungry after the 25km ride (one way) and it’s really hard not to over eat when I’m really hungry!  It also means being intentional about meals and planning ahead for grocery shopping.  Any tips for meal planning?
• Swim at least once a week!  If I can make time for a 2 hour swim each week and get 5km in the water, I would feel great about that.  I love to swim, and I really want to keep my “in-water” fitness up.
• Start a strength training program by May 13 (my 24th birthday!).  I’m not sure what this means yet, but maybe I can hit up a core class at my gym, or maybe I’ll get into a weight-lifting schedule, or maybe I’ll do P90X or sign up for Cross Fit or something.  I don’t know yet (suggestions?). But I have to have started by my birthday.

What are your strategies for sticking to the program when your life/routine changes?

Taking the bad weeks in stride, and staying on target.

Lately, things have been rough in my fitness regime.  7 of the last 10 days I’ve been over my calorie goal (1000 cal. deficit), many of those days by a lot of calories, the worst being 1300 over.

Unsurprisingly, I have not lost any more weight.  I have not enjoyed any new “added bonuses”.  My workouts have been fewer and less intense.  And in general my life feels more and more out of control.

My workouts have dwindled – I skipped Monday and Wednesday despite having time to exercise.  I told myself I would get ahead on the school work that I’ve been neglecting. That didn’t even happen.

My nutrition has been terrible.  In my “effort” to work on my school work I’ve been mindlessly snacking.  This week we had chips and candy in the house.  After yesterday we did not have chips and candy in the house anymore. I wish I could say they went in the trash.  But I’m going to avoid buying junk food moving forward.  For some reason I don’t always realize it that when I buy junk food it means I’m going to eat it.

I feel like I hit rock bottom yesterday, eating way too much junk and not exercising, but I had an epiphany moment in the evening.  I had a rehearsal for my choir concert coming up this Friday and we practiced with the University Orchestra for the first time. The sound of the strings overcame my mind and the noise and just put me at peace.

Leaving rehearsal I thought about how frustrated I am with the last two weeks health wise and realized that it’s okay.  I’m not going to be able to be perfect all the time.  But I can catch myself when I stumble, and that’s all it is – these last two weeks were a stumble.

I can make today better than yesterday, and make tomorrow better than today.

Traditionally I’ve found setbacks to be extremely difficult – in 2010, the first time I tried calorie counting, I weighed in at 240, lost about 6 lbs, plateaued for a while, and then gave  up. I’ve repeated that same cycle many times in the last 3 years.

This time I’m taking my little failure with a grain of salt, and I’m going to get right back on track.  This morning I swam 4km and I think I’m poised for a good nutritious food day.

How do you stay motivated after a disappointing week or two?

The bonuses of weight loss. More than just the number on the scale.

When people talk about weight loss, there’s a divide in opinion.  So many people say to disregard what the scale says and focus on other factors that have more of an impact on your happiness.  I personally find the numbers on the scale highly motivating.   It scares me that I may in fact be  a “numbers person”.  I’m still never going into accounting.

But as of late, I’m finding that many non-number benefits are stacking up, and honestly, it feels pretty great.

The scale tells me I’ve lost 25 lbs.  My weigh-in history tells me that I’m lighter than I’ve been since 2010 – a fact that surprises me, but shouldn’t.  I’m really happy with this progress, and the speed that it is occurring.  It’s a relatively moderate pace but I think it’s maintainable and I just keep telling myself that I just have to keep going.  My goal is to get to 188 lbs which is another 46 lbs away.  A long way to go, but I’m more than a third of the way there!

The non-scale variables have been adding up as of late!  Here’s a quick summary:

• People are commenting on my weight loss!  A good family friend says I’m looking fit, one of my fiancee’s dancer friends says she doesn’t recognize me, and my future mother in law is telling random strangers that I’ve lost “a tonne of weight”.
• My jeans are too big for me – I had to go shopping and buy some jeans that fit my new smaller waist-line
• I fit into my High School graduation suit.  I can’t believe I’ve come that far, in fact I had thought that I would never fit that suit again.  But it fits and looks and feels great.
• I fit into clothes at Lulu Lemon and the Gap.  I used to hate shopping and avoid trying on clothes at any store especially trendy ones because I knew nothing would fit with fewer than three X’s.  I found the experience demoralizing and uncomfortable.  But now my fiancee is encouraging me to try new clothes, and I love them.  They make me look and feel great.
• I can tie the gym towels around my waist. I always hated the gym towels – I made fun of them for being ridiculously small, and when I walked to the shower I would have to hold both ends of the towel in one hand to keep it on.  Now I can tie the towel around my waist and comfortably walk to the showers, hands free!
• I feel happier.  I saw a counselor six months ago for depression and to work on my binge eating.  He simply told me that exercise 3 times a week is as effective as most pharmaceutical anti-depressants.  I’m feeling happier, healthier, and way less bingier.

All in all, my life is improving from this weight loss journey.  I’m enjoying the process, and it’s amazing that I’m starting to enjoy the results of it, too.  I hope that the next time I feel discouraged or I fall out of my healthy-living routine that I can look back and remember all the benefits of committing to a lifestyle change and be motivated by this feeling.

What are some of the things that you notice when you get healthier?  Are you more motivated by the numbers on the scale or the other factors?

A reflection on Easter Dinner & Holiday Meals: Where diets go to die.

Ah, Easter.  The bane of my diet.  I went in with the best of intentions, and went out with the worst of results.  To be clear, the day I’m talking about was March 29, Good Friday, which was when my family had their big Easter dinner.

I don’t know why I find holidays so hard.  Partly I think this day was the first day off I’ve had in months – if you can call it that.  I woke up in Okotoks in the morning  as we had to attend the Good Friday church service that Jocelyn was playing at, and after we went to a marriage prep course.  Jocelyn’s parents are amazing and made us delicious whole grain, flax seed waffles which were amazing, but it’s always hard to start off a day with a 700 calorie hit just from Breakfast.

Throughout the day, we had to go all over town doing errands, and we kept stopping places for snacks.  First it was Starbucks where we succumbed to the delight of Cake Pops.  Then we were near Crave Cupcakes which we never are and decided it would be a fantastic idea to split 6 mini cupcakes – to get the full experience of the different flavors.  It was amazing.  But by the time I arrived at my parents’ house for Easter Dinner, I had already used up my 1700 calories for the day.  And I hadn’t exercised, so I did not earn any extras.  And it was Easter, so I ate Easter dinner.   After dinner, we impulsively went to a movie where I ate popcorn (a moderate amount, for me haha).

All in all, this totally overboard day put me back a total of 4031 calories.  Which felt good in a way, because I love food and I love to eat.  But it was a surplus of 2381 calories which amounts to almost 0.7 lbs of fat gained in one day.

So I’m conflicted.  Was it worth it to have a day of shameless cheating on my diet, or is it something to be ashamed of and avoid in the future?  What is a good excuse for going morbidly over my calorie goal?  I feel like a cupcake?  I really want to see a movie?  It’s Easter?

For now, I’m not going to let myself be bothered by this one bad day, as long as this type of day doesn’t occur too frequently.

Strength training. When to start, what to do… ?

I’ve been thinking a lot about strength training lately.

The old conventional wisdom is that it’s not possible to lose fat and build muscly at the same time.  Honestly, I mostly buy in to this wisdom.

It makes sense to me that in order to lose fat the body must be experiencing a calorie deficit each day, in order to seek its required energy from the fat deposits stored in the body, thereby “burning” fat.

It also makes sense that after strength training wherein muscle tissue is torn that for the body to build muscle in the healing process it requires more energy, and it requires protein in order to create new muscle.

What I don’t know is if the body is equipped to use energy from fat stores in the body to build that muscle, as long as there is available protein to use.  Further education is required on that front.

I also have heard that building muscle increases the body’s metabolism, by as much as increasing natural calorie consumption by as many as 50 calories per day for each pound of muscle added.  Some cursory research on the inter webs suggests that this theory is highly contested.  However, it is known that strength training does help to decrease fat composition, and has many other positive effects as well.  It’s just not certain how quantifiable it is.

I have not been focusing on strength.  In my fitness regimen I’ve noticed strength improving as a result of the cardio activities I have been doing, but I know this isn’t the same as weight training.

I want to get in to strength, but I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure when.

Right now my priority is calorie deficit. The most efficient way to achieve calorie deficit is to spend my gym time sweating my butt off doing cardio… right?  I love the feeling of working until I feel like I can’t stand, sweat streaming from my pores, and best of all registering a calorie burn session in my calorie tracker that totals in the region of 400-700 calories burned.  It’s super gratifying and it allows me a little more wiggle room in my diet.

My plan right now is to get down to 189lbs (where my BMI will be considered “normal” for the first time since 1997) and then focus on a strength regime while trying to maintain a relatively low fat body composition.  Optimistically I can hit 189lbs in September of 2013. Is that too long to wait to start doing serious strength training?

And what’s the best strength program out there?  Simple weights? Power lifting? Cross-fit? TRX?

Taking a rest day. Challenge: staying under calorie goal.

It’s easy to stay under my calorie goal when I swim 3km, like yesterday. Today I’m going to take as a rest day from exercise. I have so much homework and real work to do its a bit of a requirement. If only there were 30 hours in a day.

I think I’ll be fine for breakfast and lunch. My biggest concern is going overboard with dinner.

Tonight I’m taking the youth group to an event that includes a buffet style meal. Usually buffets kill me but perhaps this will be a good exercise of self control.

Wish me luck, kids!

Lethargy. How do you stay motivated?

My last few workouts have felt rather uninspiring. Add to the fact that I’m not dropping lbs as I had hoped, I’m starting to feel lost, overwhelmed, and lethargic.

When I get to my workout I can’t seem to get in the zone. I love the feeling where your brain just kind of relaxes and your body takes over, your mind almost meditating. That’s the best workout feeling ever. I can’t seem to get in that zone which is frustrating in itself.

I don’t know what the cause is. Maybe I’m not getting enough sleep. Maybe I need to eat more nutritious food instead of simply calorie counting. If I figure it out I will post about it.

How do you get in the zone? How do you snap out of a spell of de-motivation?

It’s too early to be awake! AM workout anyone?

I am doing my best to get to the pool this morning but it is hard to get moving.

What’s the best way to get motivated for an early workout? Hot beverages? Working those early mornings into your routine? Peer motivation?

I don’t have any of those things this morning… And I’m sure daylight savings isn’t helping! I better go put the kettle on…

Exercise away the bad feels!

I was having a difficult time today.

I had a rough weekend for calories. Our social interactions so often revolve around food, and I had a particularly social weekend! From Friday through Sunday I had four meals in restaurants. Not great for the pocketbook or the waistline. Before I know it I’ll need bigger pants but won’t be able to afford them!

While I very much enjoyed the food and the company, I was having a difficult time today because I knew I went so far over my calories yesterday that today would have to be very disciplined to offset my calorie surplus for this week. I ate my breakfast in the car as I knew I would be out for lunch again later.

I had a meeting in the afternoon and I got home drained and tired, knowing I would have to work out if I wanted to have a good weight loss week. I put off working out for two hours before finally dragging my sorry butt up to the treadmill in my building’s communal workout room closet.

Not only did the run help me to curb my cravings but I feel amazing. It really boosted my mental health.

Why is it so hard to think ahead to how good exercise will make you feel? Instead so often I feel the weight if my limbs and laziness and I can’t get off my sorry ars just to burn a few hundred calories.

All in all though goodness prevailed and I only went over my weekly calorie goal by 69 calories. And it just would not be fair to my manhood or middle school sense of humor to do anything to change that number.

Happy weight loss!

What caused my plateau? How can I overcome it?

I’ve been in a plateau since February 15, and it is incredibly discouraging.  As I have mentioned this weight loss effort is the most recent in a long line of weight loss efforts.  This time started out very encouraging, with rapid weight loss at the start totaling 16 pounds lost in about 20 days.  Admittedly, this is fast, and I should be (and am) happy with that success.  However, the last 20 days I haven’t been able to move that number any lower, and it is very demotivating.

So what is causing the plateau?  Let’s look at my food and exercise diary from Feb 12 to now, to see what is going on.

Date	Consumed	Burned	BMR	Net
12-Feb-13	1,891	182	2156	-447
13-Feb-13	2,287	280	2156	-149
14-Feb-13	2,618		2156	462
15-Feb-13	2,163	500	2156	-493
16-Feb-13	2,961	334	2156	471
17-Feb-13	2,373		2156	217
18-Feb-13	2,439	585	2156	-302
19-Feb-13	1,923		2156	-233
20-Feb-13	3,056	780	2156	120
21-Feb-13	2,941	1,002	2156	-217
22-Feb-13	2,312		2156	156
23-Feb-13	2,369	390	2156	-177
24-Feb-13	1,785		2156	-371
25-Feb-13	2,323	501	2156	-334
26-Feb-13	2,199	565	2156	-522
27-Feb-13	3,150	170	2156	824
28-Feb-13	2,082		2156	-74
01-Mar-13	2,567	642	2156	-231
02-Mar-13	2,064		2156	-92
03-Mar-13	1,921	1,328	2156	-1,563
04-Mar-13	2,890	774	2156	-40
			TOTAL NET	-2,995
			AVG NET/DAY	-143

 

The evidence is clear!  Even though I have days like March 3 where I know I’ve burned more calories than I’ve consumed, I also have days like February 27, where I am way over on calories.  The two days cancel out for maintaining weight, but clearly my weight loss progress has stopped for non-mysterious reasons!

All in all I have achieved a total net deficit of 2,995 calories.  The theory is that it takes a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound.  My ideal weight loss program achieves losses of 2 pounds per week, which amounts to a 1000 calorie deficit every day.  At this rate I’m getting a 1000 calorie deficit every 10 days, for a weight loss projection of 2 pounds every 10 weeks!

So, a change must be made.

I guess moving forward I feel better about the plateau because I didn’t feel like it was justified, but now that I look at the data I realize it’s the result of my choices.  I’ve been exercising well, that’s the good news.  What I need to work on is keeping my diet in control.  I need to exercise my willpower.

Thanks for reading, and good luck overcoming your plateaus!