Quit Playing Games With My Heart

Joe and I finished up our three day weekend at the doctor's office for a follow up to discuss his blood pressure. From what I understand, Joe has had high blood pressure his entire life, and the range he has been in qualifes him for hypertension. Joe is dead set against taking medication, for reasons I'm not 100% positive of. He likens it to BMI as a measurement, that it is fine for the population as a whole, but doesn't take into account individual idiosyncracies.

The doctor is giving him four months to see what we can do to lower his blood pressure without drugs. We've been talking about an exercise plan for months now, and there's room for improvement in our diet. It's been one of my goals to get more servings of vegetables into my day, so I'm going to try this meal planning deal with that in mind. I'm hoping that he'll have that annoying quality in men that once he changes his diet and exercises outside of work, that he'll lose weight easily. I'm to the point if that if I gain any more inches (I haven't gained weight at all), my pants won't fit anymore, so I'm motivated, too.

What I don't like is that now I find myself worrying about him. I knew he had high blood pressure, but I didn't know how bad it was, and I'm concerned about his attitude. He stopped smoking, he is eating better (with the aforementioned room for improvement), he's pretty much cut out drinking pop, and he has lost weight since I met him. He hasn't seen change in his blood pressure from those changes, and I think maybe that he thinks that since it's genetic, it won't hurt him?

I'm contemplating my approach on this: it is in fact his decision, and I can't do everything for him. I do have the most influence over diet and exercise, and I'll do all I can there. I'm just hoping that this four months will help him get used to the idea of the need for medication. I just want "the rest of our lives" to be as long as possible.

Run Away!

It's time to make a change. I love CrossFit dearly, and I enjoy my classes and the people in them, but I can't go on giving myself heat exhaustion every couple of weeks. I've come to the very difficult decision that I'm going to quit my gym and try to design my own workout program, better tailored to my limitations. The best bonus to this (aside from not throwing up all the time) is that Joe and I are going to do it together, which gets him back into a regular exercise routine as well.

I think we're pretty compatible with where our interests lie: we're both experienced lifters (although I'm going to be less help spotting him than he will be for me) and hate to run. He likes to bicycle and I'm open to that. We've got a lot of decisions to make, like how to fit it in to our days and what limitations we'll have in lifting in the low-ish ceiling-ed basement.

I think I want to get a few kettlebells, as I do want to still do swings and snatches and Turkish get-ups and such. Joe already has a weight set, although he is pretty envious of my brother-in-law's lifting cage. We might be able to get one of those, though, with the money I save in gym fees. I already have a treadmill from when I thought I could run. I would love to get a rowing machine and a hanging bag, but that might be down the road a ways, when we have a better idea of how much room we have. Or a different house.

This is a change I've had in the back of my mind for a while now, and I'm only just now fed up enough to act on it. I'm feeling pretty good about it, so I think it's the right one. Wish us luck!

Twitter Has Its Uses

Most of the time, 140 characters is enough to express myself. I don’t know if that’s a sad reflection of the depth of my thoughts lately or proof that I’m generally terse. But this morning I found myself wanting to talk more about something I’ve learned. Or to be more accurate, am learning and need more practice with. But first, the background:

In January, my dental hygienist convinced me to buy a Bodybugg. She’s also a Biggest Loser fan, and her gym was having a deal on them, so she bought one and loved it. When we got to talking about the show, she raved about how much she liked it and how well it was working for her. The part that sold me was that it told you how many calories you burned. The key to losing weight is to eat less calories than you burn. I was counting calories, but without knowing how many calories I was burning, it was all guesswork as to how much I should be eating to lose weight. No wonder my hygienist loved it: the information overload is empowering.

My net weight loss so far is 7.5 pounds…I’ve had some really good weeks and some really bad relapses, but most important of all, I feel like I have a good handle on what my body is doing. I’ve learned there is a real disconnect between what my body needs and what my habits have been conditioned to believe my body needs (or wants). For example, Saturday night the family went out for pizza after Hayden’s birthday party. I ate two pieces of pizza. I wasn’t stuffed and my instinct was that I could eat a third. But I didn’t and I wasn’t hungry later and I didn’t crave more once that pizza went into the box to take home. I was okay without that third piece, and some of you will understand how much of an accomplishment that is.

Just knowing what that feels like helps me prevent a binge. That just one (or two) can be enough. Why such a simple concept has to be so difficult...

Non-Paid Advertising

One of the best tools I have found so far is CalorieKing's Calorie, Fat and Carbohydrate Counter book. It's small enough to fit in my purse, and it has the calorie counts of almost any food you can think of, plus an entire section on chain restaurants. Their website is bigger in terms of number of entries, but when I don't have access to the internet, or haven't decided on what I'm going to eat at a restaurant ahead of time, this has been an invaluable tool.

Best $11 I ever spent.

August Results

Sigh.

August sucked. I started out well, but the second half went to absolute crap. For the second half of the month, I averaged 2761 daily calorie consumption. Averaged.

So I'm starting over again. The gym is doing a contest for the next twelve weeks, so I'm hoping it will provide the extra kick in the pants I need when I'm tempted to binge. It worked well the first time, but back then I was pretty sure I could place. At my gym, not so much. There's a lot of people with a lot more fat to lose.

But anyway, I had to turn in both my nutrition and my fitness goals in order to participate, so I have some accountability. I think I need to do a little self-reflection to figured out why I went wrong.

Quarterly Evaluation

I had my quarterly evaluation at the gym this morning, with good results. With a quarter in which I ate like crap, I'm pretty damn pleased. Of course, I don't know what my eating was like before this quarter, since I only started my food journal at the beginning of May. But I'm looking forward to seeing how I do feeling like I have control over my eating habits.

Which, by the way, so far, so good. I took one high calorie day last Saturday, eating out with Mom at the Button Factory and then UFC at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was kind of difficult getting back on track again early this week, I've averaged 1615 calories this week as opposed to the 1500 I'm aiming for, but I'm still under 1600 for the month, so I'm on track with that goal.

Back to this quarter's results: I'll give the stat as of 4/28, the date of my last evaluation, then the stat for today.

Weight: 167.2/159.6 lbs.
Body Fat %: 23.6%/20.79%
Neck: 13/12.6 inches
Chest: 35.5/34.5 inches
Waist: 29.5/29.4 inches
Hips: 43.75/42.4 inches
Thigh: 23.75/23.05 inches
Calf: 15.75/15.0 inches
Arm: 12/13.2 inches
Abdominal: 33/32 inches

So weight is right on track, as I was thinking 2 pounds per month was a perfectly reasonable rate. Although my scale at home says about three pounds less, but whatever. Body fat percentage hit a milestone, or close to it, anyway. According to the American Council on Exercise, 21-24% body fat in women is Fitness level, and 14-20% is Athlete level, so I'm in no man's land between the two. (Note: my BMI is 25.0, categorized as overweight, which just goes to prove it's a bullshit measurement.)

Other big changes were in the hips, which I definitely knew because I had to retire two pairs of dress pants that were just starting to look ridiculous on me. Which means I have to go shopping sometime soon, or figure out how to handle skirts on my motorcycle. :) Lost an inch off my abdomen (I think the difference is the waist is about an inch above your belly button and abdomen is lower?) and an inch off my chest. I knew about the chest because I went in and got measured at Victoria's Secret Saturday and I'm down to a 35A. Stupid weight loss distribution. And check out that arm! That's all muscle, baby.

Goals for the next quarter. I'm thinking I'd like to aim for 17% body fat, which means losing about 7 pounds of fat. This last time, I lost almost eight pounds, but only 6 pounds was fat. So that goal may or may not be reasonable, since that body fat percentage is getting down there. Looking at my body, though, I think I could easily lose three pounds of fat off each butt cheek and still be completely healthy. ;) So maybe that goal would be more reasonable spread out over six months.

To test that theory, I'm going to keep working on those things that help me feel like I have control over my eating habits, and I'm going to add 2-3 days of cardio on the treadmill per week. I bought new running shoes and a subscription to Netflix to help with the second goal, and I'm already three episodes into How I Met Your Mother (finally!) and a pretty little blister from breaking in the shoes.

Thanks to everyone for your messages of support. Being able to talk about it, hearing about your struggles, sharing tips and successes...it's all a network of support I think I was lacking. I'm also going to use you to make me accountable. One of the things that helped me when I was doing the Biggest Loser at work was knowing at the end of the week I'd have to report my results. Three months is an awfully long time, so I'll have to think about what other intermediate results I can track and report.

Conditioned Hypereating Is Just A Fancy Word For Bingeing

July was a bad month for me, eating-wise. I know exactly how bad, thanks to my food journal. There were some 3,000 and 4,000 calorie days in there, and when I look at those totals, I just feel sick. But also during July, I read a book that helps me understand that behavior, and now I just need to figure out what to do about it.

I picked up The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, by David Kessler from the library after hearing interviews with the author on NPR, hoping to gain insight into my relationship with food. The book confirmed to me what I had already known, what I have discovered in the eighteen months since I took on the effort to improve my eating habits, and gave me some tools with which to fight that battle against what the author calls "conditioned hypereating."

Conditioned hypereating, as defined by the author, is characterized by loss of control over hyperpalatable foods, an inability to feel satisfied by food, and obsessive thinking about food. This describes my problem exactly. I feel like I lose control over certain foods, and I eat beyond the point where food loses its rewarding properties, and still do not feel satisfied. Those foods are the ones loaded with salt, sugar, and fat, which is why they don't satisfy.

The book describes the process that eating has become for so many of us: we respond to environmental cues, which differ for each of us, we feel the urge to eat, and we feel the reward of eating, and this becomes a habit, so that we eat for the reward instead of eating for hunger.

The key is to become aware of this cycle, so that we can make a consious decision to eat, instead of relying on habit to tell us when and what to eat. So from my food journal, when I look at those high-calorie days, I know that my binging comes when I eat with family, when I go out to restaurants, and when co-workers bring treats to the office. My goal now is to figure out how to deal with these situations so that I don't come out at the end feeling horrible about myself.

One of the biggest things I'm taking away from this book is the reason why it is easier for me not to eat any of my trigger foods at all than to eat just a little bit. By eating just one, I have lost the struggle for self-restraint. The point of intervention is the decision, that moment of control when I say yes or no. By delegating my decision to eat to my subconscious, which is conditioned to overeat, I set myself up for failure.

The book suggests forming a set of rules for yourself to give yourself a decision framework. This takes away the decision to eat from your subconscious and engages your higher level brain function, where it is easier to take control. This is why I had such success with Seattle Sutton: if it wasn't on the meal plan, I didn't eat it. I have to come up with a more complicated set of rules to help me deal with the situations that are challenging for me.

I'm thinking that if I put the rule into place that I'm only allowed to have one serving of a trigger food, that might help (I already have a rule that I'm only allowed to buy trigger foods in single serving portions, which isn't usually an option, so that rule gets broken too often).

I'm also toying with incorporating a "high calorie day" into my food plan to allow for going out to eat and eating at my parents'. Those two activities don't usually add more than 500-700 calories to my intake, but I still feel like I failed because I'm not hitting my 1500-1600 goal range that day. So if I aim for the 1500 end on a normal day, and do 500-700 over on my high calorie day, I'm still at an average for the week in that goal range.

If anyone else has problems with bingeing and has found ways to deal that work for them, I'd be interested in hearing them.

I had my quarterly evaluation at the gym this morning with excellent results. I lost about 4% in body fat percentage, an inch off my hips, an inch off my thighs and a little off my waist. I was relieved. I could tell the shape of my hips and thighs was different, but I haven't lost any weight on the scale, so I was feeling pretty frustrated.

I'm contemplating going off my meal plan and trying to go it alone. I wish it wasn't an all-or-nothing proposition. Maybe I could do meal plan every other week so I have a back up supply of meals. Then I can ease into the habit of going to the Farmer's Market twice a week for fresh fruits and veggies, and re-learning how to build a food plan based on the healthy eating habits the meal plan has taught me and to which my body has now been conditioned.

The meal plan I'm on now is portion-controlled to 1200 calories per day, which was perfect when I wasn't exercising on a regular basis. This past tax season, I was hungry all the time and snacking on the stuff brought into the office, which wasn't usually particularly healthy. Having lost the fat over that period shows me that I do need to be eating the extra calories, but I might get even better results if I do it in a smarter way.

So I think I'm going to start compiling recipes and learning more about calorie-counting so I can do this on my own.

Battered and Bruised but Worth it

I tested for my first degree black belt on Friday. While I don't officially find out the results until Wednesday, and I won't get my belt for weeks yet, we're not allowed to test if we aren't cabable of passing, so the outcome is not in doubt.



It went pretty well, and mostly as expected. Line drills were relatively easy, and I only had to do three of the ten forms. (We're going to start learning the taeguek forms in the club now. I'm so excited! We only do the palgwe forms now, and I hear the taeguk forms are more showy.) Forms are my favorite, because I'm good at things I can memorize.



Sparring, not so much. I've never been *great* at sparring...I've improved over the years, but since it relies so much on reacting and instinct instead of memorization, it's more difficult for me. I did pretty good on the first bout, since I was pretty fresh. Second bout, not so much since I got kicked in the head and was so woozy Master Ashton had to yell at me to snap me out of it. In my defense, I was fighting a National Champion, so I don't feel too bad.

Board breaks were a little disappointing. I tried to do a speed break with a knife hand, and while I had no trouble with the practice board, I bruised up my hand and forearm, and had to do a regular break instead. Part may have been the way Cameron was holding the board - since speed breaks rely on speed instead of power, it's much more important that the board is held correctly, and Christie mentioned he was holding it differently than she had held it when I practiced. It took me two tries on the flying side kick when it only should have taken me one, and I think it was because I was flustered from the speed break and wasn't paying as much attention to my aim. So that was a little disappointing.



I'm glad I waited the extra time, though. I feel much better about this testing than I would have last year when I was still trying to figure out my heat issues. I feel more like I have earned it, and that's an accomplishment.

I finally got my body composition measured, and I’m 26.8% fat, which for my age puts me in the “average” category. At the low end of the average category, so I’m pretty close to ideal and thus happy to be average. It would have been nice to know what my percentage was back in February when I was 20 pounds heavier, but it’s probably safe to assume what I’ve lost is fat, so I would have been around 35% fat at the beginning of the year.

Although I’m very pleased with efforts and the results, it seems the psychological issues remain and in some cases have gotten worse. The worst problem is binging. I had it under control when I knew what my portion was, and if I ate more than the allotted portion, then I was off my diet. Now that I’m exercising regularly again, I know I need more than the portion I’m given, but I don’t know exactly how much more. So I have more food on hand for snacking, and once I start eating it’s difficult to stop. I’ve also been snacking when I’m not hungry or when I’m bored, and I know that’s bad and I feel guilty after I do it. I know I have an unhealthy relationship with food, and that I need to figure out how to separate eating and my emotions.

You'd think, from my obsession with weight and eating and working out, that I have some sort of goal in mind. I don't. Like the rest of my life, I'm in a "try this and see what happens" mode. Don't know if that's a healthy attitude or not. I can see changes in my body still, more definition, mostly, but not having goals also takes away the satisfaction of achieving goals.

One request: if you comment on this post, encouragement is going to be taken as platitudes, and I hate platitudes. Trainers at my gym are big on the "good job"s, and I want to roll my eyes every time I hear it. So far I've been able to ignore it, but one of these days I'm going to have to ask them to stop before I end up being rude. If my definition of "good job" does not match your definition of "good job", I hear your "good job" as a platitude and it means nothing to me and is in fact annoying.

Which I realize may come across as bitchy and unappreciative. If so, you can chalk it up to me sinking deeper into "ornery old curmudgeon"-hood, or PMS. Whichever you prefer.

I am so hungry. I'm having such a difficult time getting through late afternoon/evening. I can be hungry in the morning and I can be hungry before I go to bed, but the rest of the time, I need to be full. I know 1200 calories a day (my meal plan) is too little now that I'm exercising, but I don't know how little. I definitely don't want to go into starvation mode, and I don't want to lose weight too fast, especially since stretch marks are starting to go crazy and I want to give them time to compress themselves. Do they, even? So far my skin's been pretty cooperative with shrinking with the rest of me.

Anyway, I like the 500 calorie a day deficit, and I don't know if my hunger pains mean that I'm in starvation mode or it's just a shock to my system. I was this hungry when I first started the meal plan, and then I just got used to less food.

I have my "starting" evaluation at the gym on Friday. They'll attack me with the calipers and see what my body fat percentage is (which I've never had done before, so I'm curious) and take some measurements. I wish I'd had this done back in February when I started, so I'd know how far I've come. All I have are pictures:

I think it's time for the obligatory "look how much my pants don't fit anymore" picture.



I'm having a difficult time keeping them up anymore, even with a belt. The waist on my pants fits well around my hips. I'm going to have to break down and buy some new pairs of dress slacks.

Part of me doesn't quite believe the weight loss is real, and that one of these days I'll wake up overweight again. That's the part that doesn't want to spend money on new pants.

ETA: 20 pounds so far, soley thanks to Seattle Sutton. I've been oscillating between 150-155 this week, as I'm still working out calories to be eaten with the exercise I'm doing now.

I'm thinking about joining a gym. I went to a ribbon cutting for Fit2Live Gym yesterday, and decided today to go to a workout and try it out. I've been thinking that I need to supplement my TKD workouts with something that incorporates strength training, and I like the philosophy behind this place.

I got a really good workout, but unfortunately, I marked the return of heat issues. It took me almost 45 minutes to shake off the dizziness this time. No throwing up or headache so far this evening, so that's good, but I don't like that I had such a difficult time. It may be a factor that I haven't had a good workout since May, but I've never had dizziness like I had this time. I thought I had it figured out by quitting the birth control, but maybe not. I'll have to keep going to be sure it's not a fluke.

Poor trainer. He felt so bad for pushing me hard. I had to explain my whole history, in hopes he wouldn't feel responsible.

Four week update on my weight-loss program: When I weighed myself this morning, I weighed in at 169 pounds, which is a 6 pound weight loss (or 3.43%).

Getting under 170 pounds is a real mental milestone, because 170 is the lower limit of my weight range over the past 10 years. I haven't been in the 160s since I put on the Freshman 15, so this is pretty exciting. Especially since I've been to TKD averaging once a week and the treadmill another once a week, so this is all pretty much eating modification.

I'm really getting into the swing of enjoying food for its natural flavors and getting used to not snacking. I still really have a tough time with the craving for something sweet about an hour after I eat lunch, but I know I need to save my snack for 4:00 when the real cravings start, so it's a little easier to resist when I know if I don't it will be so much worse later on. If I can't handle it, I drink diet pop and that'll satisfy it.

I'm also getting a free pedometer from the Biggest Loser program at work, so that will be fun. I like numbers. :)

Here's hoping I can continue the pound-a-week weight loss!

There's a psychological component to the inability of people to lose weight. I haven't ever really tried, because if I don't truly try, I still think I can. Does that make sense? I haven't failed, because I haven't tried.

There's been a confluence of events that have made me ready to try. One, I went to a ribbon cutting for a new franchise in Iowa City, a distribution center for Seattle Sutton Healthy Eating. They do fresh meal preparation in healthy and calorie-controlled servings, and meal-preparation is a huge challenge for me at this time of year. Calorie-control has always been an issue for me, and because I haven't really tried to count calories, I have used that as an excuse for not losing weight, even though I exercise regularly. I can justify the expense (which is less than on the website because of the distribution center) because of the value of my free time during tax season.

Two, I want to test for my first degree black belt in May now that I have my heat issues under control. (Post about that upcoming.) So I'm motivated to make it to every class between now and then, and less tempted to skip, like I usually do when I'm working 10-12 hours a day.

And three and least important (because you have to lose weight because you want to, and not because someone else wants you to), work is holding it's own Biggest Loser Challenge for tax season, with cash prizes for the top three losers. You report your weight loss percentage every week, like they do on the show (but you weigh in at home and report on the honor system). They'll provide some free snacks and meals and fitness and recipe ideas along the way, so it's kind of a fun little program.

I would like to lose about 15 pounds, which would put me at about 8.5% of total lost body weight percentage, and which is completely reasonable for a 3 month period, since the challenge ends on April 15th. Except that it's that "last 10 pounds" which is so notoriously difficult.

I'm ready to try, and I'm scared to death. If I fail, I know I'll have tried my hardest and still failed, and the hope I've been holding onto by not trying is dashed. But if I succeed, and I can keep it off, I'll be so much happier with myself. Even though my body image issues are much, much better than than they used to be, there's still a part of me that's the fat kid, and I'd like to leave her behind with my twenties.

Wish me calorie deficits.