Eating Less and Floating to the Surface

It’s been a while since I posted. The week after poor Elwood went to little hammy heaven, Spike took a turn for the worse and joined him. I hope they’re both having fun up there, scampering around from cloud to cloud, eating sunflower seeds to their hearts’ content.

As for me, things overall have been going well. I’m still not doing much in the way of exercise, and certainly not lifting, but my eating is under control. I’m keeping a written food diary based on portions of food groups, rather than calories, so no counting, which is nice. I’ve also been reading a book called “Eating Less: Say goodbye to overeating” by Gillian Riley. She is apparently a counsellor and has also written books about stopping smoking. Her premise is that overweight is caused by an addiction to overeating, and overeating can and should be treated in the same way as other addictions. The book makes an enormous amount of sense (except where she goes outside her remit and tries to explain science, which she clearly has no understanding of), but the behaviour change stuff is excellent and I am finding it very helpful. This morning I weighed in at 13 stone 11.8 (193.8 lbs/88.1kg), probably around a 10-year low!

This week I am attending the second module of my MSc in Weight Management and we have been looking at different methods of assessing obesity levels. We got to try out lots of techniques, from circumferences, to skinfolds, to bioelectrical impedance, to a BodPod and underwater weighing. They have all come between 0–2% of what my home Tanitas tell me in the morning, and in the case of the BodPod, that’s an £18,000 piece of equipment (around US$30,000!). Unfortunately, I didn’t get a reading from the underwater weighing – I was just too buoyant. They couldn’t get me under the water! It’s been quite fun, and I am inspired to re-start my exercise efforts. Maybe. Soon. One of the most striking things about it all though was that I was quite happy to get down to my swimsuit in front of a group of people I didn’t know and have them poke, prod and measure me. Two years ago I would rather have had my fingernails pulled out with pliers. I have come a long way in body acceptance terms – firstly because I am proud of my body and what I have achieved, even though I have a long way to go and still don’t look the way I would like, and secondly because I truly no longer identify my self worth by how I look. I am not my fat. It was really quite liberating.

To Elwood, RIP

I don’t usually write about my personal life, except as it pertains to health and fitness, but I will make a special exception today. Nearly two years ago, hubby and I bought ourselves three small Russian dwarf hamsters, and called them Jake, Elwood and Spike. The hamsters were a kind of compromise pet – we were limited because of a) my allergies and b) the no pets rule where we live. But after a chance meeting in a pet shop (where we would often go just to dream and play with other people’s pets), we became the proud owners of our three little hamlets. They would have been about a month old when they came to live with us and were so tiny you could barely feel the weight of them on your palm.

Since then, despite me developing an unfortunate hamster allergy (particulary when it came to cleaning their cages!), they have provided us with hours and hours of priceless entertainment. One of my favourites was Elwood, standing up on his hind legs, holding a chip (french fry) as big as he was between his little fluffy paws, and nibbling away at it with gusto. Before anyone gets on their high horse, the chip incident was a one off. Usually treats comprised seeds, nuts, or a bit of grape or broccoli.

It was always quite amazing such small animals could have such large and distinctive personalities. Jake, although a bit of a bully when he was with the other two (we had to separate them), was the only one who would sit still and let you pet him. In the early days, he was also the one who left little unwanted presents when you picked him up – the highlight being the day he weed on my rather posh mother. He loved running on his wheel – although not so much nowadays, he is getting on a bit – but never strayed far from home. Spike was like spiderman – he would hang upside down off his fruit stick to make sure that he got every last morsel. But Elwood reminded me the most of myself, and probably because of this he has always been my favourite. He was greedy, lazy, and loved to explore. We would let him loose on the carpet and he would hoover up any crumbs that we might have missed. He’d eat anything and everything and hated his wheel. But he never missed a chance to escape and would roam all over the house in his little yellow ball. When he was young, he’d sit up on his back legs and look like a little grey fluffy tennis ball he was so chubby, but as he grew into adulthood he became the slimmest of the three.

Russian dwarfs don’t live all that long – between one and two years generally, 18 months on average. Ours must be around 21 months old now. Spike has a couple of tumours on his rear legs but otherwise seems absolutely fine and is still going strong. He is likely to die of old age before the cancer makes him ill. Jake is a little chubbier, and runs a little less than he used to, but is otherwise in good health. But Elwood developed what looked like a cold last Thursday and died suddenly on Friday night. He was buried yesterday in my mother’s garden, in a small box with some fluffy bedding and his cuddly broccoli, and in the spring we will plant some sunflowers to mark the spot – his favourite seed, and apparently the national flower of Russia. Hubby and I cried like babies, and I am tearing up as I write this. To my little explorer, R.I.P.

Making progress, slowly

This week has been a little better and I hit most of my goals. I logged my food everyday except Saturday when we went out to a friend’s house and I lost track of all nachos, chocolate and wine! I worked out for 30 mins or more five days out of seven (and one of those days I was ill) and totalled 3.5 hours. I even made some progress in my home office. Apparently, I have carpet! Who knew!!

According to Fit Day, my calories (excluding Saturday) averaged 1800 odd per day over the week, giving me a deficit of around 500, and this was reflected in a 1.5 pound loss and a drop in BF%. I’m still a couple of pounds above my pre-NY low, but heading in the right direction. Nutrition composition wasn’t great (56% carbs, 16% protein – just under 72g/day on average, and 27% fat. More importantly though, I was short on the RDAs of quite a few micronutrients, including the usual suspects, iron and vitamin E, but also selenium, zinc and a couple of others. Still, one thing at a time.

I had planned to start lifting (NROL4W) again this week. I got my weights all set up last night ready to go, hopped on the treadmill to begin warming up, and then couldn’t face getting off and squatting with 40kg on my back, so upped the speed and did intervals instead. So that was at least a positive thing – the first time since I went away, and I couldn’t half tell the difference. My fitness was way down: I could only jog for one minute rather than two, and my heart rate recovery after a 60-second slow recovery interval left plenty to be desired, but it’s a start. I warmed up for five minutes, did 8 intervals of 1 min hard, 1 min easy, then gradually cooled down from a brisk walk to take me to 30 minutes. I covered 2.707km in that time, so that’s the number to beat.

Goals for this week:

Nutrition: Back to basics mark II – aim for 7+ servings of F&V per day.
Exercise: Do at least two lifting sessions this week.
Lifestyle: File mine and my husband’s tax returns for last year.

More of the same

It’s been a better week than recent efforts for me, but still not great. I started out well, but then went a bit crazy towards the end. But at least the baby-steps goals got me moving in the right direction.

I logged all my meals, however awful, on Fit Day. Over the week, my average intake was 2014 calories, only just below my calorie expenditure. Although I wasn’t focusing on macronutrient ratios, for the record, it was 59% carbs, 22% fat and only 19% protein. My weight dipped the first few days then rebounded with all the takeaways and other crap towards the end of the week. Goal for next week, continue logging and cook dinner every night – no more takeaways.

I didn’t manage 30 minutes of exercise every day, but did average that overall with a few longer sessions: 1 hr 45 mins walking, an hour of tai chi and 45 minutes of badminton. Although I got three and a half hours total, I want to get into the habit of exercising daily. Goal for next week, to improve on the 4 out of 7 days I managed this week.

As for my lifestyle goal, 15 mins of sorting in my home office/gym per day, I managed 4 out of 7 on this as well. It is getting harder as I did the easy stuff first. Goal for this week, an hour or more over the week.

Weigh in today has me still over 14 stone, but moving in the right direction. As I am eating about maintenance calories, I won’t really lose any more weight until I up my exercise. I’m starting to think about lifting again – I’m even starting to miss it. Ha! That will wear off soon enough, I’m sure. I’d like to do a whole week with sensible amounts of movement to get back in the habit before I contemplate a tough lifting schedule. I think I will probably start NROL4W again, from the beginning, since I have now been off for longer than I did the programme! Maybe next week…

In the nick of time

Seems like I made that decision to do something to get me off my plateau in the nick of time. This morning I weighed in at the dreaded 14 stone 4, or 200 pounds. I promised myself I would never go over that number again. I can’t guarantee that the scales won’t edge up tomorrow, but I’ve done my part. I’m back exercising again (although not lifting yet) and back eating proper food, rather than junk.

This mental block seems to happen every stone or so. I seem to do well for two or three months and then hit a wall. I guess that’s not really a problem. It won’t hurt in the long run to do it in fits and starts – it’s not so much the physical requirements of exercising and carefully monitoring my nutrition as it is the mental strain. I can live with three months on one month off, provided I maintain at my new weight, which I have been doing, and not back tracking. So for the past month, despite my nutrition and exercise going to pot, I have been maintaining at around 197, 198 – much improved on my old 220! I have been watching my body fat % going up though – sometime in the not too distant future I will have to start lifting again if I’m going to preserve my lean body mass. But one step at a time.

Back to Basics

It’s another week on and I still haven’t addressed either my eating or exercise so I’ve decided – it’s time to go back to basics. No lofty goals, no specifics, no pressure, just simple goals to get the ball rolling. So for this week my goals are as follows:

Nutrition: Log everything I eat on Fit Day.

Exercise: Do 30 minutes of exercise a day, every day.

Lifestyle: Do 15 minutes of sorting/cleaning/filing/shredding/paperwork etc. everyday in my home office until I am not embarrassed every time I walk into it!

That’s it. Hopefully, I should be able to manage that!

Bloggers Anonymous

Me (standing up): Hi…I’m BBG and I’m a blogger. It’s been two weeks since my last post…(hangs head in shame). [You: Hello BBG] And over a month since my last workout. [Gasps of horror from around the room.] Today I ate cake. A lot of it. I didn’t even like it. And sweeties. They were alright, but I ate the whole pack in under 10 minutes. [Murmurs of understanding].

You see (…begins tale of woe…), I was doing absolutely great. Had dropped another stone, was exercise regularly and loving it – I’d just started a new programme and it was going really well. But then I went on holiday. To New York. And although I started out real motivated and all, I soon caved under the sheer volume of temptations. OK, I walked a lot, but despite taking workout gear with me, I only got in one workout. I know my hotel had a gym, but it wasn’t really geared for a NROL-type routine. And OK, so there was a Bally’s Fitness on the same block, with preferential rates for hotel guests, but it was 12 bucks for the day! And you’d want to get your money’s worth, wouldn’t you? And I was in NYC, with so much to do and so much to see – so what if my whole workout takes under 40 minutes – I just couldn’t spare the time.

And then when I got home I went straight from the airport to the University of Chester for three full days of lectures and the like for my new masters course. And then back at work on the Monday, both my colleague and I had been on leave and the paperwork was mounting up and we had four courses completing and six new ones starting – we still haven’t finished all the admin. And of course I’ve had to start on researching my assignment for my masters’ module. That’s why I spent 12 hours in front of the computer yesterday – it was a Sunday – and despite being a beautiful day, I didn’t make it to the park for the run/walk I’d suggested to my husband in a moment of optimism that morning. I ignored the weight bench and treadmill behind me too – I had work to do. Missed lunch, but that’s OK. The golden syrup sandwich and the two pieces of chocolate I had late afternoon kept me going.

The thing is, I really really want to make changes, but since I’ve been back, I just don’t seem to be able to get motivated. There’s so much junk food around at work at the moment, and I suppose a little couldn’t hurt. Right? And who has time to log their food intake? Besides, I just had to see what happened on X-Factor Judges’ Houses – poor Nicole and TreyC – they so deserved to go through! What WAS Simon thinking? So you see, I really never stood a chance on the diet and exercise front – it’s not my fault – it’s just that everything was stacked against me.

(BBG sits down feeling vindicated.)

How to do a deadlift correctly

Recently on the forums that I contribute to the name Mark Rippetoe has come up as a very good resource for correct form when lifting weights. He has a book called Starting Strength that people rave about. I haven’t managed to get hold of a copy as yet, but the following two videos are available from YouTube and show correct deadlift form. Even if you think yo are doing it right, you might want to check these out – they are the best I have ever seen. I thought I was doing it right, but the low back pain I have been getting after my deads would suggest otherwise. Hopefully, I won’t be having that problem anymore. Watch and learn:

Phew – water weight

I guess some of that 5 and a half pounds was water weight since I’d dropped 2 and a half of them this morning. After just one day back on normal, healthy food, with no exercise, I weighed in at 14 stone 1.0 (197 pounds), just under three pounds more than when I went away.

Unfortunately, jet lag has kicked in. Studying all day plus an hour and a half driving is taking its toll. Came home and slept again, only just waking up now, at nearly 9pm. So I missed my kung fu class, and I was really looking forward to it. Oh well, can’t be helped – I’ll have to pick that up next week. I obviously needed the sleep. I’m looking forward to a lie in tomorrow and getting to the supermarket and stocking up on healthy food.

NY: Foodie heaven…What’s the damage?

Back from New York, energised but stuffed. I managed to hold out on the sensible eating for about a day and a half, before just going with the flow. It doesn’t surprise me that obesity levels over there are so high. What astonishes me is that there are any people in New York who manage not to be overweight. It must take either an iron will or genes of gold. Even so, we had a wonderful time and it is still one of my favourite places on earth.

I did manage to do one of my NROL workouts but otherwise we just walked and walked and walked. Weigh in this morning was pretty much as expected. I gained around 5 pounds in the five days, with an additional day of travelling, followed by going straight from the airport to the first day on my masters course, with no food in the house to take with me. Survived much of that first day on biscuits provided and the first evening with a Chinese takeaway. This morning I weighed in at 14 stone 3.6, or 199.6 pounds, keeping me just short of that dreaded 200 pound threshold. That set me back on the straight and narrow today, at least food-wise. Didn’t manage a workout as I came straight home and fell into bed. Got up around 10pm and am heading back to bed shortly.