This is more important than my previous post in which I whined

Everyone should read this from Kelly at Grounded Fitness. We've all been thinking and talking about this forever, I'm glad someone finally put it in writing.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I wasn't going to post tonight because I am SO annoyed with myself and when I post here I can't avoid the truth. I gained a pound this week. I was honestly surprised that I didn't at LEAST maintain. I am SO frustrated with myself. Gaining a pound means that I have consistently eaten 250 more calories a day than I have burned. I will admit this week has been REALLY hectic with work and that I have been particularly tired and lethargic in the evenings. But I've hardly spent any time at my desk! I've been running all over the city all week! UGH! Andrew thinks I should try re-weighing myself tomorrow but I'm afraid if it doesn't change, I'll be even more bummed.
With Halloween tomorrow and two parties to go to, now I'm all worried about drinking too much and blowing it 2 weeks in a row. I know it makes me sound like a lush, but going to parties and NOT drinking is really tough for me. I guess I have no choice but to try. I'm starting to feel like a HUGE party pooper recently. We've been invited out several times this week but I don't want to go because the invites are to bars for drinks/happy hours etc. Drinking makes me hungry=bar food=blowing my calorie target for the day. Tonight, Andrew went to see a play with some friends and I decided not to go because I wanted to get a workout in. Am I all of a sudden one of those super obsessed lame girls who absolutely CANNOT skip a workout? I really hope not. The whole point of doing this was to make living healthy and losing weight a sustainable thing.
UGH! I guess I'm just bummed.
Have my big event for work tomorrow morning (the mayor is coming-SO NERVOUS!) and then the rest of the day off to enjoy the Phillies parade!
I worked on my Halloween costume tonight but I had some issues with super glue and now my fingers are a mess. I will be sure to post pictures of the finished product!
Happy Halloween weekend!!

INSANE

OH MY GOSH, THE PHILLIES JUST WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!! This city is CRAZY right now! The game ended over an hour ago and we are still hearing horns blaring, fireworks and people cheering.
This is the most amazing thing for this city. We SO desperately need something to unite behind. I'll write more on this after the victory parade on Friday, which I'm sure will be just as crazy as tonight.

I attempted level 3 of the Shred on Tuesday. Oh. My. God. I seriously HATED Jillian for he entire 20 minutes. That bitch is CRAZY! At one point I was actually laughing because I honestly couldn't believe I was hearing what she was suggesting I do. Jumping jacks with 5 pound weights in each hand?! GAH! I was curing and grunting like a madwoman. But it was an amazing workout. I guess I'm on my way to being shredded(?)
In all honesty though, I can't see how it only takes 30 days to get through the whole DVD. I spent 12 days on level one and almost 3 weeks on level 2. Granted, I wasn't doing it every single day, but I've been doing the DVD for over 6 weeks and only just felt ready enough to try level 3. Or maybe I'm a just a wimp.

Tomorrow is my weekly weigh-in and I'm a little nervous. I drank WAY too much last weekend and I have been stressed beyond belief this week with work. When I'm stressed out, I don't eat well. Actually, I hardly ever eat. Today I barely squeezed in 1200 calories and I think I only made it because I had seconds at dinner.
Anyhow, it should only be stressful for a few more weeks and then things should settle back into my routine. At least the Shred is good for squeezing in a quick workout, so that part of my routine hasn't suffered too much.

I'm so excited for Philly! But I HAVE to get to bed. I have 1.5 more crazy days of work before I'm allowing myself to celebrate at the Phillies parade on Friday. Which means I better finish my Halloween costume tomorrow. This is good for me. I ALWAYS wait until the last minute to throw a Halloween costume together. What's everyone else going to be? Until tomorrow...

Minor Distractions

You'll have to excuse me if my post comes out craptastic and rushed. I am in the middle of watching the Phillies play in game 2 of the World Series and we're behind by 2 :-(
Anyhow, today was my weekly weigh in and I lost another two pounds! That brings my total to 12 pounds!!! I'm feeling very encouraged; I am right on track with my goals. I decided that I want to lose 3 more pounds by Halloween next week, which will bring my total to 15 pounds. I'll need to be extra diligent this week to make that happen, but I'm pretty sure that I can do it.
Today I got all kinds of crazy and tried to wear those jeans that I haven't been able to fit into in awhile. I have at least 4 kinds of jeans in my closet: my fat jeans, my "these are the jeans I fit into most days" jeans, my "one size smaller" jeans and my official skinny jeans. Today I put on my "one size smaller" jeans. They're still a little snug, but they zippered AND buttoned which is PROGRESS!
ARGH! We're behind by 3 now!
Oh and we made delicious vegetarian cheesesteaks for dinner tonight with portabello mushrooms, onions and american cheese on awesome wholegrain bread-so yummy!
Oh and I found AMAZING peanut butter at Whole Foods, but I'll write more on that tomorrow.
Go Phils!!!

What if you can't choose?

Tonight I had a training session for my part time job, where I manage a program that prepares taxes for low income families. Its the most personally gratifying work that I have ever done (despite its challenges, which I'm sure you will all hear PLENTY about once the tax season starts). I really enjoy being a part of this program, really I do.
So tonight, I left right from my 9-5 to go to this training session. At the last training, they had a really nice meal for us: rotisserie chicken, green beans and potatoes (and plain caesar salads for us veggies). Last training session, I had a salad almost dry and half of a piece of cornbread. It was healthy enough and it filled up me up for the rest of the afternoon. So I was expecting something similar tonight.
Instead, we got pizza. Now, I already had my allotted pizza treat on Saturday (and a leftover piece on Monday) so the last thing I wanted (let alone NEEDED) was pizza. I was SO hungry that I ate a slice of pizza. But then I was still hungry and had 3 more hours of training left, so I had another. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, I do appreciate that they feed us. But, if given the choice, I would not have selected pizza for dinner. And, thinking I was getting something else, I didn't plan ahead and pack a dinner.
We talk so much about the choices we make every day and the challenges that come alone with them. So what do we (you) do when we don't have the option to choose? Do we intentionally eat something we don't want to, and get back on track later? Or do we become really unreasonable about our commitment and find a way to get something else?
I had a very interesting discussion earlier this week in which someone challenged me to the idea that unreasonableness in our commitments (that is, the idea that we go beyond what we think we can do to stick with our commitments) is what ultimately makes us successful. So maybe I should have excused myself for 15 minutes to go hunt down a salad. But next time I'm in a situation like that, I will. And not because I'm afraid that 2 pieces of unplanned pizza will kill my goals. Because I am committed enough not to look for (and take) the easy way out, even when doing so will make me look completely neurotic.

The Big 10

I woke up feeling pretty exhausted after last night's HUGE Phillies win (WORLD SERIES, BABY!) and I almost forgot it was evil Thursday, my weigh-in day. I started the shower and went back to get on the scale and, to my surprise, I have lost 10 pounds! WHOOP!
I was pretty surprised that I lost 4 pounds this week, because I actually took a day off from working out on Friday and then, in lieu of a regular workout, decided to walk home across the city on Tuesday night (which actually burned a shit ton of calories). So I haven't been as maniacally active as I have been the past month or so. And my body fat didn't change at all this week, either (LAME!).
But either way, I'm really excited! My only issue is that I don't FEEL like I've lost 10 pounds, I don't even think I LOOK like it. Most of my pants are still pretty snug so I can't even attempt the skinny jeans yet. I was actually getting a little down on myself this morning, but then I had to remind myself that 1) the weight I was at before I started this was pretty much the heaviest I have ever been, 2) most of my "skinny jeans" are from when I was bulimic and 3)I'm all kinds of bloated since its just about my lady time. But I am encouraged, to say the least.

My doctor called on Tuesday to go over some blood work that I had gotten done a couple weeks back. Turns out I have a B12 deficiency. This is actually good news for me because I have been EXHAUSTED for the past few months. And not your run of the mill tired, I mean like mono tired. I knew something was wrong but I couldn't figure out what so I Googled fatigue and made a list of all the things it could be and asked my doctor to test for them. She said the deficiency is probably because I don't eat enough meat/animal by products, but it could be an absorption thing so I'm going to start with a supplement and then get tested again in a couple months. I really hope it helps, I am so tired of being tired.

Oh, and I've been taking the milk thistle for about a week but my body fat didn't change this week. It's probably not enough time to gauge its effectiveness, so I'm going to keep at it for a few more weeks and see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

Also, I'm a total slacker and didn't blog about poverty for Blog Action Day. I suck. I promise that I will do it before the end of the week.

I have some shout-outs for this week, here they are:
* To THE PHILLIES! For giving us bitter Philadelphians something to unite behind
* To The Taproom for 100% grass fed, local beef. Rock on, dudes!
* To Grocery for their hot oatmeal and fixins bar (LOVE IT!)
* To Emergen-C for the short, but much needed, burst of energy
* To Abby for NOT fixing the fax machine because it's funnier to watch The Lawyer get mad
* To Mr. Puss for not pissing on our bed
* To the guy on my block who told me I was "lookin skinny" (I'm not, but that was nice of him)
* To me for starting to plan my Halloween costume more than a day before Halloween
* And finally, to Andrew for doing the dishes AND taking out the trash at 6:50AM

Eeeeek!

This is how I approach the scale now, after last week when I didn't lose any weight. I was kind of putting off weighing myself this morning; snoozed 4 times, took the dog out, rolled back into bed for a few minutes, then finally dragged myself up and out and onto the (eeek!) scale.

Aaaand I lost 2 more pounds!
Which brings my total weight loss to 6 pounds. So even though I maintained last week, I'm still right on target! WOOOO HOOOO! And ontop of that, my body fat has gone down 2% this week! Thank you Body Bugg for your accountability and Jillian Michaels (P.S.-I love you) for your ass kicking workouts!

So obviously I'm feeling pretty kick ass right now. Which is a marked improvement from yesterday, when I spent 3 hours at the Volkswagen dealership waiting for my car to be inspected (there's NO way its supposed to take that long). I was that girl sleeping in 2 chairs pushed together in the waiting room. I was annoyed that I didn't have time for a run because it was dark by the time I left, so I just did level 2 of the shred and called it a night. My back has been bothering me ever since my incident with the erg last week. I think tonight I will just go for a long, easy run, then out for a drink to celebrate because my friend Emily got a job! YAY!

The other thing that I'm proud of is the lunch I had today. Andrew and I went to grab a quick bite after a work event that I had on his side of town. The menu had so many delicious things but I opted for a vegetarian chili (without cheese since you can't really taste it anyway) and a side of sweet potato fries (a treat!) that I shared.
I ate MAYBE a cup of the chili and a handful of fries and was full. If I had eaten that same meal a month ago, I would have polished off the chili and the fries all at once. Is my stomach shrinking? My favorite part was that I stopped when I was full and not stuffed. I didn't feel gross from over eating AND I have leftovers that I can have for dinner with a nice little side salad. SCORE! Someone once told me it takes about 3 weeks to form a habit and they must have been right because I swear this gets easier everyday!

Diet Pills Be Gone!

I took my first diet pill when I was 13. I forget how I convinced my dad to drive me to the drug store and what I told him I was buying, but I had saved up my allowance money for weeks to buy Dexatrim. This is was in 1993. When the rest of the kids my age were going to pool parties and soccer practice, I was hiding diet pills in my sock drawer. I'm confident that this is how my eating disorder began, but I digress.
I'm sure you're thinking that I should have just tried out for a sports team, or taken a dance class or done SOMETHING active. But I was already too chunky to feel confident doing any of those things, and my family was the opposite of athletic. Literally. The opposite. My dad worked all the time and my mom was way too busy doing laundry, dishes, cleaning and keeping track of 5 kids to have time to lead by example. Its not anyone's fault really, I just didn't know where to start and I was too scared to ask. So I took the easy way out. Or what I THOUGHT was the easy way. Fifteen years later, I'm pretty sure that just taking a walk once a day would have been a shit ton easier than all of the pills, restricting, throwing up, lies, fatigue, heart burn, therapy and medical bills.
(I know this doesn't have anything to do with diet pills, I'll get there, I promise)

It wasn't until my senior year of high school that I started to exercise. Jogging a half mile at first, then three, then ten. I finally had enough confidence to try out for the crew team when I got to college. And I made it. Because I just plain REFUSED to give up. BUt when that year was over and I was at another school, my motivation fell apart and I got lazy. And fell back into my old unhealthy habits. In the worst way. And it took YEARS to come back from.
So here I am again. Yesterday my friend tells me about this diet supplement she knows about that is "supposed to be really great." And then there's the recent hype over Hoodia. These things FREAK ME OUT. I am FINALLY learning that the only way to lose weight is with hard work, diet and exercise. That's it. There really is no magic pill....at least no magic pill that will KEEP weight off.
Its about changing your ENTIRE lifestyle and committing, REALLY COMMITTING to making it happen. Even when you get discouraged and would kill a man just to eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's. I get this now. Its HARD. There are no shortcuts.
So when I read a blog earlier today suggesting a supplement, I was seriously skeptical. This blogger, Ashley, says her trainer told her about Milk Thistle when she was hitting a plateau. Milk Thistle is supposed to promote healthy liver function. (Which is probably good for you boozers out there too). But the connection that I didn't make (and I'm guessing most people don't) is that the liver is the primary fat burning organ in the body and also regulates the metabolism of fat. Sooooo Milk Thistle, if used properly, simply supports the liver, makes sure its doing its job, and (in sum) helps make the body more efficient at burning fat.
*Shout out to Ashley for this info, if she happens to read this*
Sounds really interesting. WHile I have sworn off diet pills FOR LIFE, I can certainly feel comfortable taking a natural supplement to help my liver work better. I mean, I take all kinds of natural supplements to make various parts of my body work better: glucosamine for my knees, acidophilus for my GI stuff...and they all work great. I think I may give this new one a try, too. Finally, a "diet pill" I don't have to hide in my sock drawer!

Shamless Plugging

I'm digressing from my fitness obsession for two minutes to tell you about this page I found today. They have tons of great giveaways and showcase a bunch of really unique, handmade products from all over the place. I love supporting the little guys, so check it out (all 2 of you who read this) and enter to win some free stuff.



On other news, October 15th is National Blog Action Day 2008. This year's topic is poverty. I'm not sure exactly how I'll write about this yet, but I will definitely be participating. Anyone who has a blog should, really. Blogging has become a powerful way for previously unheard voices to speak their truth. If you've got a blog, sign up and participate. It only takes 2 minutes.



In other news, Bruce Springsteen gave a free concert on the Parkway today for Obama. It would be awesome if I could say for sure that all 50,000 attendees were also Obama supporters, but I can't. Although, Bruce had some very important things to say about this country and our future. Maybe he was able to sway some of those people who are undecided, he is The Boss afterall....
Shout out to Keeza for the sweet 5-feet-from-the-stage tickets! Bruce was pretty much sweating on us. It was awesome.
Other shout outs to:
The Phillies! For kicking some Brewers ass in game 4
To Chase Utley for being so damn CUTE!
To Brian Westbrook for bouncing back from an injury to do some damage in a seriously tough game (but the rest of you, except for Dawkins, are on my shit list)
To the South Philly Tap Room for an awesome grilled cheese sandwich (and the return of specials!)
To me, for kicking my own ass on a Sunday morning
To the dude I ran past 3 times who told me I'm inspiring
And to Andrew, for emptying the dishwasher this morning!

A quick update, the interval training is going well. Its seriously hard. On Friday and Sunday I did the Shred and then followed it with 20 minutes of interval training (running). Then I read an article that suggested doing interval training before a cardio or strength training workout to burn the extra trigylcerides (fat molecules) released by the body after a workout. Because women's muscles use more of these fat molecules for energy than men's, when we start exercising again, we have a bunch of extra fat molecules laying around to convert into energy, which means we burn more off than we would in a plain, old steady state workout. It sounds intriguing, so I may switch up the interval training and the Shred and see what happens. Pretty soon, I'm going to need some new workouts to keep me busy once the weather gets cold and I can't run outside anymore. Suggestions welcome...

Avoiding This

I've been avoiding posting this since I'm totally bummed. I didn't lose any weight this week. I'm still pretty much on track with my goals, I'm just bummed. I blame the beer! Its hard not to get discouraged when you don't see results, especially in the 2nd week. Maybe this is why my therapist took my scale away....I've never had what you would call a healthy relationship with numbers. All numbers, really, not just the ones on the scale. I'm terrible at math.
I'm starting to feel like I'm becoming a neurotic exerciser. I've been reading all these websites and articles on working out and being fit and cardio vs. strength training. I read an interesting article the other day about how steady state cardio does jack shit for burning fat. Wait, if I'm gonna talk about it, I should try to find the link... (https://www.figureathlete.com/free_online_article/training)*
Our new scale tells you your percent body fat and mine is WAYYY too high. And since my usual workouts are mostly steady state cardio, that would make sense, acoording to Rachel (the author of the article). Anyhow, since burning fat is really what I'm after, I decided to spice up my workout with some interval training, which I started last night. On the erg, of all places. I don't know what I was thinking since that machine is the bane of my existence and there were many a time in college where I would have gladly taken a chainsaw to one. Once a rower, always a rower, I guess. Its my go-to machine when I'm looking for a structured workout (i just use the ones we did in college). I started by running to the gym (about a mile or so) and then did 20 minutes of interval training on the erg: 1 minute on, 1 minute off. The I ran back home after stretching. It was tough and my back was BARKING but my heart rate shot right up after my rest minutes and I actually burned about 100-200 more calories than I would have in 20 minutes of steady state cardio. Pretty interesting. I think I will try to do 2 interval workouts a week. Maybe this will be more effective in burning fat and I can work on getting that body fat down...like, a lot.

* Can someone PLEASE help me post links??!?!?

Et Al.

Tomorrow will be my second weigh-in and I'm nervous that I haven't lost any weight this week. I'm afraid that even as careful as I was on Saturday with all the beer and Sunday with the pizza, it will have set me back. *Enter crazy, obsessive, eating-disordered Becky* I realize that when I start thinking like this, it only results in a downward spiral, so I'm really trying to commit to staying focused while at the same time giving myself a break. I know this all requires hard work but, again, if I'm killing myself then its not sustainable and, therefore, won't last. The point is to make it LAST!

I did a second day of Level 2 of the Shred last night (which is Day 12-almost half way!) after a short run. It's definitely tougher than Level 1, especially those evil chair squats with V-flys. If I didn't like Jillian so much, I would HATE her! I have talked this DVD up to everyone I know, no joke. Jillian should be paying me to market this thing. Although, to be fair, its not a hard sell and it only costs $9.99 on Amazon.

I'm getting much faster with the counting of calories and now that I have added most of my frequent foods into the Body Bugg web system, it takes seconds to manage my food for the day. My hunger throughout the day is scattered. I usually find that I am most hungry between lunch and mid-afternoon and even when I have a snack, I'm not satisfied. I have been drinking TONS of water as well and that hasn't helped, so I know the hunger is genuine. I'm having a hard time balancing the hunger with calories. I think I usually save most of my calories for dinner, but I may rearrange to have the bulk of my calories consumed between 12-4pm. Hmm...I'll try that tomorrow and see if it works.
Right now a typical day's meals look like this:

Breakfast:
2 cups Trader Joes cheerios
1 cup skim milk
1/2 banana (or 1/2 grapefruit)

Lunch:
PB& Jelly Sandwich (or rice cakes with lite cream cheese, onions & tomatoes)
2 cups mixed green salad w/dressing (1tbsp)
apple

Snack:
1/4 cup raw almonds
Trader Joe's dried fruit bar

Dinner:
i serving of Thai curry with tofu

Actually, after looking at that, most of my calories are in the first part of the day, so maybe I need to add in a morning snack and then eat lunch later? That seems like it would be more effective.

In other stuff:
I cannot WAIT for the VP debate tomorrow night! It should be "enlightening" at least..
AAANDD Andrew and I just found about this program Farm to City (www.farmtocity.org)* Now we can get all local produce throughout the winter! Hooray! We can also get bread, cheese, eggs, milk and a whole slew of other things-ALL LOCAL and we get to PICK what we need! See? Eating local isn't as restricting as people think it is! I'm SO excited! I might have to get everyone I know into THIS too!

*I have NO idea why I can't get links to work, but its really getting annoying!