Treading Water

It’s been a so-so week this week. I’ve made good food choices at meal times and prepared my meals in advance, but have been having cravings all week, and been going out and getting crisp and chocolate to snack on most days. All was explained when I discovered it was that time of the month. That would also explain why I’ve been having some other women’s troubles, and have been too uncomfortable or in too much pain this week to work out. I only racked up a little over 2 hours exercise this week, most of it early in the week. And only made it to bed by 11.30 three times.

The good news is, I am now feeling much better. Goals for this week are thus exactly the same as last week: continue to make good food choices and prepare in advance; do an extra pilates session this week; do some exercise every day, even if it’s just a 15-minute walk; go to bed by 11.30 at least four times this week.

WW Bonus Points

Weigh day today. My weight has been pretty static all week, although I’ve seen my body fat coming down in to the 43’s. Up to 44.8 today though!

I’ve been using up some or all of my exercise bonus points in the last week. As the scale hasn’t budged much this week, have decided to limit myself to a maximum of 2 bonus points a day, no matter how much exercise I do, and then, only if I need them. Also, I won’t carry over any I don’t use. As my basic point allowance is 23, I won’t be able to use more than 25 a day, and then only if I do 2 or more bonus points’ worth of exercise.

So, for example, today hubby and I went for a walk for an hour, and I did 15 minutes of intermediate level pilates with the magic circle. Altogether, 5.5 points’ worth. But I’ll limit myself to 23+2 for food. This way, I can eat more if my energy expenditure makes me hungry, but otherwise, any calories I’ve burned up should come off as fat loss. Hopefully.

Still, even if I didn’t lose weight this week, I did manage nearly 4 hours of exercise, up from…well, not much previously. And I made good food choices when I was away from home. So feeling pretty pleased with myself. Also, hubby and I have made a pact not to watch more than one hour of television a day, which should make it easier to start going to bed earlier. Three days out of seven last week I was in bed before 11.30.

Goals for this week: continue to make good food choices and prepare in advance; do an extra pilates session this week; do some exercise every day, even if it’s just a 15-minute walk; go to bed by 11.30 at least four times this week.

My Valentine’s Day

Had a wonderful day today. No sweeties, no chocolates, and a dozen red roses delivered to me, most unexpectedly, at work. I may have blubbed a bit. Who needs calories when you have lurve?

Hubby promised a while back to cook for me tonight, but after toying with roast duck, roast potatoes, and the works, he asked me if I’d like to pick something healthy for him to make, since I had just got back on the wagon and he didn’t want to derail my efforts.

Came home from work, did a workout, had a shower, got prettied up, and sat down to:

• Kung Po chicken (2 points)
• Brown rice (3 points)
• Steamed veggies (0 points)
• Glass of chilled white wine (1.5 points)
• Followed by WW lemon cheesecake (3 points)
• All by candlelight (priceless)

All warm and fuzzy inside (and not just from the wine), and off to bed for an early night. Hope you all had a good one, whatever your circumstances. ‘night all.

Nutrition Tip of the Week no. 13

Tip #13
Unhealthy ‘Health Foods’
by Dr. John Berardi

Products that claim to be ‘Cholesterol Free’ and ‘Low in Saturated Fat’ often have the most trans-fatty acids. Unfortunately these are the products that most of the public thinks are ‘healthy.’ Remember, trans fats have absolutely no place in the diet! They’re the only type of fat highly associated with very negative health outcomes.

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Look out for another nutrition tip next week.

Doing better

Thank you all for your comments and emails of support. I have now dug myself out of the hole that I was wallowing in and am back on track. Hubby and I walked to the cinema and back yesterday – 40 minutes each way, and to the post office this evening to post a letter, rather than dropping it in the outgoing mail at work tomorrow. Also back eating healthier food, and loving it. Will try and write a bit more tomorrow. ‘night all.

Another dreadful week

I’ve had another dreadful week of take aways, sweeties, cakes, and despair. And I only managed 45 minutes of cardio and one weights session. As always, I punished myself for this by gorging on junk food, just to prove the point. Anyway, today is weigh day and I’m up 3 pounds, but when I logged in to post my results on the sidebar of shame, I came across this comment from Mark.

Hi, just came across your blog on Google while searching for something else, well done on setting all these goals, and working towards acheiving them.
Have you considered visiting an NLP trained counsellor as they could help you at an unconcious level. It appears your focus is on losing weight, and getting rid fat. Your unconscious only hears fat and weight and thus willingly assist you in keeping this condition.

You could consider changing the way you think and write to be about slim and thin, and make zero reference in your internal language to the things you don’t want. The old story of .. don’t think of a piece of chocolate cake… I bet you just thought of a wedge of the most delicious cake. THis is why the theory of dont do something fails. You need to focus on what you want, instead of what you don’t want. Try it for example.. today I want to eat healthy food only, i want to excercise for 40 minutes, I will go to bed early. Now surely that already feels better than a list of all the things you don’t want to do today such as I will not eat junk, I will not avoid excercise, I will not go to bed late… get the gist of what I am saying. YOur focus is on what you don’t want, and it should be on what you want.

Make the change now.. it works.. best of luck

This is really interesting, so thanks Mark, and I will start thinking about reframing my goals.

Not the full picture

My weight is down a pound this week, but that’s not the full picture. Last weekend I was on the rise, and continued to go up till I hit 15 stone 3 (213 pounds). I cried, I berated myself, and then I pulled myself together. I’m back counting points, back exercising, and back believing that I can do it. I’m feeling much more positive in general at the moment, and very motivated. Hopefully this week will be a bumper week.

I just read something really powerful about switching your mindset. It was from an interview Craig Ballantyne of Turbulence Training fame was doing with Alwyn Cosgrove. Cosgrove is a big name in the fitness industry, specialising in fat loss and body transformations. He’s trained champions in multiple sports and winners of multiple 12-week body transformation contests. Alwyn owns and operates a training facility in Santa Clarita, California and he’s also written his own fat loss book called “Afterburn”. This is what Cosgrove said about the psychology of sticking with a programme:

Clients have to make the mindshift that it’s not about “will this piece of cake really hurt me that much?” to “is what I’m doing getting me closer to my goals or not?” Just a little shift in thinking can reap huge rewards.

Yeah it’s true – if you dieted and trained all week, a glass of beer and a few chicken wings won’t hurt you that much – but it damn sure isn’t getting you closer to six pack abs.

One thing I really liked was John Berardi’s compliance grid – where we see overall compliance to the plan, as opposed to details. It helps clients see the big picture. A 90% goal is what we shoot for.

So let’s say the plan is 5 meals per day, and 3 workouts with post-workout nutrition per week. So we’re looking at 38 meal opportunities.

If a client misses a meal, or doesn’t eat a meal that’s part of the program, then they lose a “point”. Our goal is a minimum of 34-35.

It lets a client see that if they eat perfectly on Sun-Fri, but miss a couple meals on Sat, and eat a couple of cheat meals that day – in their head they were “on” the whole time.

But when we do the compliance grid we see that Sat alone cost them 5 points. So despite what they think or perceive to be happening – they are NOT compliant – just an important distinction to teach them.

I have definitely been operating on the “how much damage is one little piece of chocolate (or two) really going to do me in the grand scheme of things?” method of self-rationalisation. From now, I am going to plan out all the key elements of nutrition and exercise for the week and start measuring my compliance. Will post on this tomorrow. Thanks, Alwyn.