Thoughts: 1.22.09

I have a confession to make – I met some friends last night and had a couple of drinks and skipped dinner. I get on the scale this morning expecting the worst and I’m only up .6 lbs… but still annoyed. I started eating clean on the 11th and since then [as of YESTERDAY] I’ve lost 5.2 lbs already. My goal is 10 lbs this month – a month being 4 weeks. So I have until Feb 7th to make that goal. And I have no doubt I will, despite last night – which normally would throw me off path, make me depressed, cause me to eat crappy comfort food, which would make me feel guilty, causing me to eat more crappy comfort food, making me angry with myself, causing me to stress eat, which would make me depressed – and so on… you get the picture. 

This time it’s different. I’m not focusing on my entire goal. I’m focusing on one month at a time, which means if I slip up once or twice, it’s not a big deal, so there’s no need to start the crappy comfort food cycle. I also focus one meal at a time. I skipped dinner last night because nobody else ordered food and I didn’t think I’d be there very long… but I ate my snack right before getting there, had to do some walking because I chose to drive to a train station and take the T [the subway for non-Bostonites] and walk vs. trying to drive around the center of this town where there are no left turns and too many one-way streets.. so I did a lot of stairs in the process, too… yeah, I missed dinner, but as soon as I got home I ate my last snack, had a couple of chocolate truffles [alcohol does erode my will... what can you do?], drank a lot of water and went to bed. 

I’m writing this as a reminder to myself that drinking once in a very long while is okay, but it does lead to making dumb decisions all around… and to avoid it if possible. Other than that, I’ve been doing very well. Planning is key, as everyone knows. It makes eating clean much easier. I’m enjoying all the great food I’ve been preparing – and I’ll start to post pics and recipes for things again for culinary inspiration. I have a long road ahead of me, but if I stay focused on the short term goals, I’ll make my long term goal in no time. 

One of the reasons I’m not being neurotic about it this time around is because I started a new exercise program. I’m still doing Turbo Jam in the mornings, and now I just started the Chalean Extreme program in the evenings – which is an intense weight-training program with really intense interval training twice a week – so I’ve doubled my activity level, which makes a big difference and forgives little indulgences here and there. I’m pretty sore already and had to take a break yesterday to let my body recover, but it’s back on the horse today! I’m loving the Chalean Extreme program – And I’m glad I started with the turbo jam workouts first – I don’t think I could hack this more intense program if I didn’t already have a strong core foundation. It’s tough! I’ve already noticed a difference in my muscle tone after a week, so I’m excited to see where I’m at in a month, 3 months, 6 months, a year! If all goes ot plan, I’ll be at my goal by the end of August – back to my highschool weight. What I want most is to be able to go skiing next year – to be in great shape and to really enjoy it without hurting myself. I miss all the sports I used to do all through my first 20 years. Skiing, skating, biking, hiking, swimming, sprinting, roller skating/blading, etc… even horseback riding. I’m taking my life back this year. Period.

Update: I just worked out and did 10 minutes of intense abs and the 20 minute TJ workout – and what a difference! I’m glad I took yesterday off. My legs needed it – but I really did feel a difference in my strength -I could do a lot more – go deeper in the squats, turn more in the hook punches, etc. I love feeling those little improvements! I also forgot ot mention another love – TENNIS! I would LOVE to start playing tennis again in the spring. I work with a guy who’s played longer than I have so I’m hoping I can get him to play a little tennis after work a few days a week when the weather gets better.  =D  

As I’m saying this stuff I’m smiling because the shift in attitude and thinking is pretty dramatic. Getting healthy and fit used to be about bikinis and cocktail dresses, knee-high stiletto boots and shopping at boutiques in Rome – all well and good, but NOW I’m way more looking forward to the fun I’ve been missing out on doing all these various sporty activities with people. I think I’ve rediscovered my inner athlete! Yay!

New Year… New Inspiration… Thoughts

While on vacation I bought a bunch of new magazines to try out. One I really liked in particular was Clean-Eating Magazine. In it, there’s a woman named Tosca Reno [pictured] who has a regular column about clean eating. I’d never seen her before, but I remember asking myself, “I wonder how old she is… she looks amazing!” Well, I finally remembered to look her up today and was completely ASTOUNDED to see she’s turning 50!! 

What makes her an even bigger inspiration is the fact that she didn’t always look like that. According to her bio on her website [toscareno.com], she was heavy in her 20s – over 200 lbs, had 3 kids and became a swimsuit model in her 40s! Pretty amazing. It just reinforces the fact that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. 

Since 2008 was the year of ‘the exercise’… and I seem to have that down pretty pat, working out 5-6 days a week and having kept that up for almost a year now, I’m finally ready to move on to my eating habits. I know I’ve said it a lot, even in the short time I’ve been writing this blog, but the difference now is, I’m getting more sleep, and I’m planning meals out on weekends which makes it much easier to stick to eating healthy. I don’t have a problem eating healthy food – I prefer it. My problem the past year or so was lack of planning, not eating on a schedule, eating too many carbs or sugars, too many grains, not enough protein, etc… I’ve done a lot of experimenting with my diet the past several months to figure out what I can and cannot tolerate. I can tolerate very small amounts of whole grain products – once a day and that’s it. So if I have a whole grain omega-3 lavash wrap with my eggs and some veggies for breakfast, I’m not having the Barilla Plus whole grain omega-3 pasta the same day [if I can get what I want and there's an omega-3 fortified version, it's a no brainer - we just don't get enough omega-3 in our diets these days. I also take fish oil and DHA caps to supplement as well]… but if I have just eggs or a protein shake… or halibut and kale for breakfast [yes, I eat that stuff for breakfast...], then a dish with veggies and lean meat in a light sauce with some Barilla Plus for dinner is a-okay!  =D

I’ve also been experimenting with various levels of dairy fat. I decided that I like 2% milk but nothing less than that, as well as 2% cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, string cheese, etc. Any lower in fat and I just won’t eat it and it’ll get thrown away. Luckily Sargento has those individually wrapped cheese sticks which are perfect for throwing in my lunch bag to have with a piece of fruit for a snack mid morning. 

I also recently discovered that I like eating cruciferous veggies like broccoli, kale and cauliflower when I add lemon juice to them. Go figure. All this time I’ve tried to like snacking on lightly steamed, cold broccoli and cauliflower only to just get bored with the flavor really quickly. Or trying to like kale – made with garlic and a little olive oil, etc. – the way I like most veggies. With kale, it didn’t work. I steamed some yesterday morning with some lemon juice, et voila! YUM. 

It’s the little things that keep me going. lol… 

The newest season of Biggest Loser started last week. This will be the 3rd season I’m watching – I didn’t like it when it first came out, when they’d weight the ‘teams’ on those huge scales all at the same time against eachother. It just made those poor people seem like cattle to me. I thought it was demeaning, so I didn’t bother with it until I landed on it halfway through the season last year and had it on in the background while I was doing something else. I got hooked and started to find inspiration. Well – this year’s is crazy – some of those people weight over 400 lbs – and it’s their determination to change their lives that touches me. If they can do it, I certainly can!

Another bit of inspiration was found on the special features of the Death Race DVD. Jason Statham was in amazing shape for that movie and he talked about the sacrifices he made to get so ripped. They showed him eating raw veggies while the rest of the crew was eating pizza, etc. at lunch. The look on his face was sheer torture. I hope he was being dramatic. lol… between his diet of ‘bland turkey or chicken and a lot of disgusting raw vegge’ and his killer workout routine, he was in the best shape of his life. I happen to love raw veggies and fruit, and I know how to make turkey, chicken, fish, etc. taste amazing without adding too many extra calories, so… how hard can it be, right? 

I’ve also done something I almost never do anymore – set specific goals for myself. I normally don’t for fear of failure, but this time I don’t have that fear. As with how I approached exercise last year [and continue to do now], I’m going to take it one day at a time. I know there will be times when I’ll want to indulge, but for the most part, I just have to say ‘no, thank you’ to outside temptation – like all the goodies people bring to work to share, baby showers, bridal showers, holidays, birthday parties and other various special occassions, etc. It would really need to be worth it at this point, and I know if I do slip up, I’ll just pick up where I left off at the next meal, like I do with workouts. Every now and then I can tell my body needs a break, or I’m just too tired in general and I’ll skip a workout. Not the end of the world. I just workout tomorrow. I feel too good not to. I was sick for over a week before Christmas and didn’t work out for almost 2 weeks and could feel a huge difference in my strength and energy. I can never go back to being a couch potato. No thanks… feeling great is enough to keep me going.

All I know is, I feel 100x better than I did this time last year – and I only lost a total of 10 lbs on the scale… [because I ate whatever I wanted - literally - so it's nice to know that if i keep up my exercise routine, once I'm at my goal weight I can probably eat almost anything I want and not worry about gaining weight back... but now I just want to LOSE weight, so eating better is a must]. I can only imagine how great I’ll feel when I lose the other 75 lbs or so. The goal is to lose 10 lbs per month until I get to where I feel my body is healthiest [not skinniest - it isn't about that anymore...]. I’ll know when I get there.  =)

This year I’m my own priority because I have a feeling next year we’ll be starting a family – another reason to get in shape for me… I want all these healthy habits to be as automatic and natural as possible so that I don’t start falling back into old, unhealthy ones when I’m exhausted after having a baby and being up all hours of the night… I also want to be a good example for our kids someday, and I want to keep up with them despite waiting longer than most to have kids. Funny how the habits and beliefs you pick up the first 10 years of your life take another 25 to undo… lol.

Just never stop trying.  =)

Photo Credit: courtesy of toscareno.com