Green machine

I have been a Weight Watchers member since May 2012, at the time I was also training for my second Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day, so I was somewhat active and lost a little less than 20 pounds during that summer. Unfortunately I gained it all back and then some when student teaching started. Since then I’ve used the service on and off until this past January when I started using it regularly again.

As I discussed in my initial post, mindset is a huge factor and I have found that the goal of making healthier choices works much better than the goal of simply losing weight. So sure, I have said this before in one way or another, but I thought I could talk about what that actually means in terms of eating and a program like WW.

It’s fairly easy to use a program like WW and lose weight while (mostly) continuing to eat the same way you always have. However, that kind of weight loss is probably going to be temporary and will not progress past a certain point. When I joined in May 2012, this is what happened to me.

When I committed to a healthier lifestyle in January, I changed portion sizes and cut certain foods from my everyday diet. I now only eat fast food once a month, if at all. Soda is something that I only have a couple times a week and usually in MUCH smaller quantities than before (think 10 oz or less). I usually was having a salad and/or lean meat (turkey or chicken) for lunch, an egg or green smoothie for breakfast. Now that I am several months into this change, the formula for my meals varies more now, but in the beginning (and sometimes even now) it is helpful to have a set plan for most meals. Some people find it helpful to do meal prep for a whole week and if that’s what keeps you on track, do it! I like the option of being semi-spontaneous plus, I share a fridge with other people so it makes it more difficult to fill it with a whole week’s worth of food for one. Dinners differ, sometimes it’s a bit of splurge if I go out, but if I’m staying in, it’s a meat and vegetable or fruit, but I promise- it’s usually more creative than it sounds.
Green smoothies are a very helpful tool. You get a whole lot of fruit and veggies in something that is drinkable on the way to work and it’s filling. This site kickstarted my green smoothie curiosity, however currently, I do not necessarily follow any recipes. Whatever fruit I have in the fridge and the freezer are fair game. I use spinach as my green (I have recently discovered that I am not much of a kale fan, but that is another option). I have found that cocoa powder is a must in all of my smoothies. A typical green smoothie of mine consists of something like:

1 cup water
1-2 cups spinach
1/4 cup strawberries
1/3 raspberries
1 cup frozen mixed berries (I use the Kroger Private Selection packs of frozen fruit)
1 tsp-1tbsp cocoa powder
(sometimes) 1/2-1 tsp Torani sugar-free hazlenut syrup

The measurements here are approximate as I’m usually just throwing in handfuls of ingredients. The fresh fruit I use is often dependent on what needs to get used first in my fridge. If we have bananas I use 1-2, but then I also like to add frozen oranges to counter the 0ver-sweetness of the bananas. I like to use water versus milk- more for texture than anything else but using milk or yogurt will definitely add to the nutrients of your smoothie. Adding chia seeds or peanut butter is also another way to pack your smoothie with more nutrients.

When I reach for a snack, I try to make it something to do with spinach (I have found that I quite love spinach) or fruit unless I need some more protein or carbohydrates for the day (remember: light carbs before a workout and protein for after a workout). On the weekends, when I am home for a large part of the day, I can become a big snacker so I make sure there is always something healthy for which I can reach. I also make sure that the “bad” stuff that I might grab in a moment of weakness or unexpected hunger is stored low and somewhat out of sight.

By making these changes, I wasn’t cheating the Weight Watchers system and I found healthy things that I truly liked to eat and eat often. I didn’t cut out any food groups, but there are groups that I eat less of now (such as less breads and less cheeses). One of the downfalls of WW because of the points system is that you have to be aware of the nutrient values of food for yourself whereas SparkPeople, as previously mentioned, can include include a rundown of the nutrients you have consumed in a day.

I have my pint of gelato once a week or 1/2 pint twice a week (I feel having the one big indulgence day a week is better than using some of my 49 extra weekly points for a small dessert every night).

The bottom line is that I started eating things that contained what I needed to live- healthy fats, vitamins, carbs, protein, etc. Reduce portion sizes and reduce unnecessary foods (foods that are not necessary to survival and health).  Don’t get me wrong, I still work my frilly coffee frappucinos in there when I can and I enjoy everything I eat. The point is that sweets, salty snacks, high-calorie stuff should be seen as an indulgence and not a regular part of your diet.

Also, drink more water. Substitute it for other beverages you might need to cut out.

Now go eat an apple.

Excuses, excuses

Changing your lifestyle is difficult, especially when you’re trying to be healthier. It’s a physical, emotional, and mental game. Your brain can be a tricky little prankster, which is why you have to trick it right back with gradual steps (as stated in previous posts) so it doesn’t realize what you’re doing until it’s too late.

Part of winning this game is being self-aware and asking yourself, ‘is this an excuse or a legitimate reason?’ The first few months of this year, if I made the decision to not go to the gym, it was a decision that took at least 5 minutes of analysis first. Why am can I not or do I not want to go the gym? Could this decision interrupt my future gym plans (i.e. will resting too much make me not feel like going tomorrow or the next day?)? If I do go to the gym, will THAT interrupt my future gym plans? When was my last rest day? Is it realistically possible for me to make up this gym workout within the next couple of days?
These are a few of the questions I ask myself whenever I considering skipping a workout. If I did think that resting was the best answer, then I still HAD to make it up the next day. I HAD to; there is no way around it because going to the gym and working out regularly is a lifestyle, not a temporary thing. On a related note: it is perfectly fine to exercise with a cold; you may feel crappy, but you will most likely feel better after getting a brief workout- in fact, I have usually felt loads better after working out with a cold. DO NOT work out if you have a fever, however. When you have a fever, that is when you absolutely require rest.

Excuses are the silent killer of a healthy lifestyle, I think. Excuses are so villainous when you are first starting out with exercise and healthier eating, but the longer you continue with healthy decisions, the easier it gets to dismiss them. First of all, you start realizing you can do more than you thought possible so that when that stupid, blood-sucking fiend of an excuse pops out of the shadows to tell you to take it easy, ‘it’ll be too hard,’ you quip back with, ‘Oy! I CAN do that. Even if it is hard, that is not going to stop me.’ Go you! Slay those excuses without breaking a sweat! As you start eating healthier, your taste for your old eats starts to fade as well. So awhile later, there’s pizza in the break room and Mr. Pepperoni is sitting there winking at you, but you think about it for 30 seconds and realize that the last time you had pizza…it actually was not as satisfying as you used to remember…so you reach for the lunch you packed. Sometimes the “need” or craving for certain foods is almost a learned behavior.
I truly feel that I have clearer ideas of what my body needs when I get cravings. Protein, carbs, fruit, vegetables. In fact, if my family orders pizza, I do not eat it- not because I’m “trying to be good” but because it is not what body needs or is craving. Of course, maybe you’ll still want pizza or chips or beer even after getting into your healthier lifestyle, we all have our different indulgences. Mine is gelato. That is the one thing that I try to make room for in my eating habits.

I still have to fight excuses here and there (especially as running has been getting harder) and it took me 3 months or so before I felt I wasn’t having to fight.
Give yourself mental pats on the back whenever you make a healthy decision. Ate a salad? Yahoo! Did your daily workout when you didn’t necessarily feel like it at first? Kicking ass and taking names. Turned down the triple chocolate explosion cake? Like a boss.
Your brain will start to associate those great decisions with feeling good possibly before you start to feel or see the physical results.
Go and spank that little trickster into shape.

Let’s get physical…physical

Before I get to the meat of this post, here’s some hors d’oeuvres-
I saw a new challenge on Pinterest I might like to try. After pinning it, I went to the website…it seemed to essentially be a tumblr full of scantily clad women’s asses. Which made think about the fact that I don’t get my inspiration from pictures of the body I might want. As much as this blog is about my weight loss, as much as my weight loss is exciting and great, I’ve lost weight because my emphasis is on being healthy, not thin or ripped. I cannot stress enough that I feel this is the true key to my success- keeping myself focused on the healthy choices, the choices that make me feel better for having chosen them (exercising, eating more fruit and veggies, cutting out soda, etc), that is the commitment and that is how you lose weight, as a bonus. This is why the scale obsession was such a big deal to me- this is not healthy and it’s solely about my weight when it should not be.

I figured it might be nice to be more specific about the kind of exercises I did in the beginning and how I got here.
At first, armed with my FitBit (a “high-tech” pedometer; I use the Flex, which is worn on the wrist), I set out to try to get 10,000 steps most days. I usually got anywhere between 3000 and 5000 steps at work and then I would try to fill in the rest with some other activity after work. At first, it seemed pretty daunting to get 10,000 steps in a day, so I built up to it, and it was obviously easier to do if I had gotten more steps in at work. To try to get the rest of my steps, I marched or jogged in place while watching tv and/or I played Just Dance Greatest Hits (in the Just Sweat mode) on my Wii. These were both activities that I could do at home and took very minimal convincing/motivation to do. In fact, marching in place while watching tv became second-nature. It was only after about a 3-4 weeks of this that I started trying to get back to the gym to do strength training.

Belonging to a gym is nice, if you can afford it (I belong to a fairly cheap gym) for many reasons: it’s nice not to have to buy weights, it’s nice and sometimes necessary to get out and change up the exercise routine elsewhere, strength training is an important part of fitness because it helps build strong bones as well as muscles. When I say ‘strength training’ I mean weightlifting and calisthenics. Calisthenics can be done anywhere and the ones that take up some room are better done at home, but I do a fair amount of my calisthenics at the gym to pair with my weightlifting routine.
When I first started going back to the gym, it was only once a week; remember- do things smaller, shorter than what you think can do at first, or put it in a different way, put yourself in a position in which you know you cannot fail. Once I had 4 or more successful weeks of going to the gym at least once a week and completing my at-home cardio, I upped gym time to twice a week. A couple months ago when I ended up not being able to get to the gym for 2 or 3 weeks, I had to re-motivate myself so while I still went twice a week, I only did strength training instead of strength training and cardio so that my gym time would be less and, in my mind, easier to go. You can find my workout Pinterest board here. I utilize it whenever I want to change up my routine. Every 2 months or so, I rotate different routines- I look at all of the moves that work certain areas and decide which ones I want to utilize. I found this article to be fairly helpful in fleshing out how many reps/sets I should be doing of what in the beginnning- I did not follow the sample routines verbatim, but it was a good jumping-off point.

In March I started running with a C25K program, as I talked about in an earlier post. I did 21 Day-Fix (a dvd workout program from the people who brought you Insanity) as well as three 30-day challenges in May/June- though I do not necessarily recommend either of those things for those just starting out. The 21-Day Fix is essentially 21 days straight of workouts and while there are technically “active rest days”, there are no rest days away from Autumn and her workout crew unless you impose one yourself. It’s a great challenge with some good routines if you are looking to change it up, but in my opinion, it would be a little too grueling on someone who is just getting back into the exercise game. The 30-day challenges are…challenging but they do work if you stick with them. However, doing multiple ones was hard, even several months into a pretty active lifestyle, especially as you get further into the challenges. As with dvd programs like the 21-Day Fix (programs that are supposed to be completed over a certain amount of time), I think that doing some of these challenges as a way to get back into exercise could set yourself up for failure and they’re failing to teach how to sustain an active lifestyle complete with such calisthenics.

As always:
-First and foremost, move! Just.move.
-Do your research, ask questions, experiment
-Do what you can so you can keep doing what you do 😉 aka challenge, but do not overload yourself