Main Blog UPdated: Fight The Fat Remotivation Project Day 1 VLOG

Fight The Fat Remotivation Project Day 1 VLOG

 

Evaluating The Holiday and ReSparked

I had gotten pretty busy and didn't spark for a couple days. Holidays sort of make the focus go onto something OTHER than the routine, than journaling, etc.

But, I never had my mind totally off what I needed to do. I didn't exercise Thursday or Friday, so I have my sneakers on and plan to do my alloted cardio before showering for whatever we're gonna do this evening. I've eaten fine today, and I'm not terribly hungry at the moment, either.

So, the holiday and Black Friday:

Thursday: I ate breakfast, cause I knew dinner would be round 4 or 5 pm, depending on the turkey's doneness. We outdid ourselves this year, as the food was especially delicious (and plentiful, of course). My contribution was an organic salad with arugula, watercress, pears, dried cranberries, blue cheese with raspberry vinaigrette and toasted pecans. I thought it was great, the blend of sweet from the fruits and dressing, earthy and peppery from the greens and pecans, and the sour-deep taste of the cheese crumbles. I also took a veggie platter with assorted raw veggies. This way, I knew I'd have lots of F/Vs to select from. Instead of making the low-fat chocolate cake and baked apples, I spazzed and got pumpkin pie and key lime pie at Whole Foods. It worked out. I had about two tablespoons worth of the insides of key lime pie (I hate the crust of those pies, graham crackers are icky to me). And that with a bit of whipped cream did me fine, along with a couple bites of dark Belgian chocolate (60% mini bites, not truffles).

Later that evening, at home from my family's gathering, I got peckish. In order not to totally go into food depravity, I heated up some lentil soup, had a pear, called it a night.

The scale was fine the next day, other than a little salt uptick. Salt has continued to bedevil me, so I have not returned to 266 (I'm at 268 and change). I have been in stasis, not losing, but the salt regain hasn't left cause I've indulged in the salties. My bad.

It's still thrilling to see me in the 60's, but I"m really ready to move on, here, peops!

Black Friday: I had a beef craving (again, what up with dat), so we went to Chipotle. I had part of the Barbacoa Bowl (I asked for very little rice and extra beans to give me fiber-fill-me-up) and had the guac for the good fats and flavor. Hubby let me have one of his beef tacos. That satisfied my beef craving, so I had a very light dinner of leftover turkey breast in light gravy with some organic whole cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes and fruit (papaya, orange).

Today, I've only had one meal--egg white garlic-tomato omelette with Ezequiel toast and St. Dalfour four fruits jam, Trop 50 orange juice lite, coffee.

I have noticed that when I have several 400 to 500 calorie meals in a row, my appetite is a bit quieter. When I have a a couple big meals in a row, my appetite readjusts upward. This makes me want to not binge, I can tell you. I like that I'm feeling calmer in terms of appetite, and I am so afraid to set up a binge by having a huge blow-out.

Anyway, I haven't lost this past week, I have held on except for salt bloat variations, and now it's time to lose a bit before Christmas sets up its obstacle course.

I have done some Sparking today--my breakfast, read some articles, etc--and I want to get my head on straight for a new week. I have my horrible tasting Zinc liquid supplement (since I kept coming consistently way low on that in my nutrition profile from my online food journal), and my B-complex/B12 tabs. I've got my Amazing Grass for an afternoon pick-me-up. I'm ready to tackle the next seven days.

On to my Saturday cardio, ab work, and stretching...

Enjoy your weekend, gals and ladies. And be very healthy in your choices~

The Steak Dinner: Making Choices, Good and Bad

Five days of in-range calorie eating, five days of nearly perfect nutrition, and I got a mad craving to go out for steak. So...we did.

I sat and made concessions. None of the usual sides with steak, ie. mashed or fried potatoes or baked loaded, plus veggie souffle. Or that dreaded blue cheese and creamy dressing salad that steakhouses lure me with. :)

I started with their simplest salad and a vinaigrette (sorry, blue cheese). I had these sides: a baked sweet potato, plain, and sprinkled diet-friendly cinnamon on it ( not sugar). I had broccoli steamed, plain, no salt. I I had a couple ounces of merlot to balance its heart-healthiness against the saturated fat/cholesterol in red meat. I had unsweetened iced tea. I skipped the usual fruit tart or chocolate mousse (that I'd usually give in to at this particular eatery) and made do with a double espresso with Splenda.

That's what I did right. What I did wrong, besides eating too many ounces of NY Strip: I had not one, but two slices of French bread (it is a French restaurant, so the bread is really enticing). I used EVOO, not the butter they served with it.

What else I did right, knowing we'd be having dinner out: I had a moderate braekfast and a very light lunch that, together, totalled 650 calories. Enough to keep me from being utterly famished, but not so much that I didn't have some leeway at supper.

At the end of the day, after, yes, five days of great caloric containment, I went 500 calories over the maximum SparkPeople nutrition tracker allows me. I would have only gone 400 over, but I decided to have a coconut water to get in some potassium, and I had a fiber mix to push the meat through my system a bit faster. :)

I drank my water, good. I didn't make time to exercise, bad.

A day of good and bad choices.

After the restaurant, I asked hubby to drive to Barnes & Noble. I wanted to load up on health/fitness magazines, low-cal holilday cooking ones, too, in order to get myself motivated for the coming weeks of temptations.

It starts this week. Holiday eating. Lord, help us plan and help us make the better choices!

Tomorrow, a family birthday party will likely set all sorts of minefields. But I have set aside healthy snacks and beverages to take to minimize temptations/damages. Will I be perfect? Doubt it. But I will be...better.

Happy Weekend to all Fatfighters!

Bible Bite: A Be-Attitude for Dieters and Giving Yourself a Gift on Three King's Day

Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied."
~~Luke 6:21

Yeah, I know that I'm taking this famous Beatitude out of context by making it about dieting, instead of the spiritual context of the Sermon on the Mount. But I think the Lord will understand. :) After all, gluttony is a sin, and the Word is there to teach us, to help us correct ourselves, to assist us as we work to overcome our weaknesses, right?

So...back to my appropriation of the Be-Attitude:

This was part of my devotion for yesterday. And I had to stop and consider it in MY current context--which is the one where I work to beat down my gorging inner beast.

Dieters are generally hungry. Most honest diet books admit it. Anytime you go from, say, 4000 or 6000 or 3000 or 8000 calories down to 2000 or 1600 or 1200, you will be hungry. (Yeah, I know the very low carb diets have an elimination of hunger through ketosis aspect, but most of us don't or won't or can't do that sort of eating.) Some, like Dr. Beck, make it clear that being a grown-up means putting up with hunger pangs until it's time to eat according to one's meal plan. Most diets offer tricks and strategies to get us to feel full on fewer calories, on better foods, because hunger sets us up for gorging.

We dieters will face hunger. It's just how it is.

We don't like to hear this, do we? We don't like to feel deprived, hungry, peckish. And it's not just about the body (though that wars against us). We want the emotional comfort and satisfaction of eating what we want, when we want, or a reasonable facsimile.

But dieting means some acceptance of being hungry.

If we--and that means mostly ME, right now--can accept that there really is a blessing in tolerating a current and ongoing suffering of periodic levels of hunger in order to achieve ongoing and later levels of better health and mobility (the grown-up reasons) and a more attractive physique (the shallower motivation), then I--and we-- can see that the latter blessing (health, beauty) are greater than the current pseudo-blessing of eating what we want, when we want.

Whoa, that was a keyboard-full.

Result of all this pondering? I went to bed Monday a little hungry. I was at 1700 calories, and if I had a meal, even a mini-meal, I'd bust the 1800 I was shooting for. So, I sucked it up and went to bed with that little pang in me.

I've awoken with an appetite, I can tell you. And the scale showed a downward move from yesterday by -.6 lbs. So, that puts me at 276.2 today.

This is Tuesday. This is my mindset right now: Let yourself be a little hungry.

It's probably a good mental adjustment for all of us with weight issues--but how can we hold on to it, how can we live with it? I dunno. I'm just putting this out there: When the pangs start hitting, and what we plan to eat is X --which is low-cal and healthful and as filling as reasonably possible--and what we want to eat is Y--which is excessive and non-healthful and gorgeful--let's call ourselves blessed if we choose the healthful way, even if it leaves us not totally satisfied NOW. There's a greater satisfaction coming. A greater blessing.

Today is the second Christmas for us in the Latin culture. It's Three Kings Day. We celebrate the arrival of the Magi to offer gifts to the one born in Bethlehem and born to be king. (None of the gifts were cakes, cookies or sweets, I might add. All valuable and useful and symbolically significant, but not fattening. Heh.) I used to wake up to gifts under my bed on this morning when I was little. The Christmas season ends today, the Twelfth Day of Christmas. The Feast of the Epiphany.

Hunger as a blessing is my epiphany this week. I hope I can hold onto this blessing.

And this is my gift: I am giving myself today is the gift of a day of healthful eating and of accepting the occasional twinges of hunger and unsatisfied cravings, so that I, the Roly-Poly Princess may one day find satisfaction in being the Slender Queen of my empire.

Be a Magi to yourself today. Give yourself something that enriches your moment or your week or your life. Maybe an inspirational book or a calming cd or just go outside and sing a song in the sunlight. Maybe just ten minutes of positive thoughs: be grateful for the gift of life. Write a love letter to someone you haven't appreciated enough with words. Donate to a food bank in your name, and eat less so someone can eat more.

Seek an epiphany of your own. Be quiet and consider yourself and your life and your habits. Is there something you can come to realize that will be of help to you in any way, small or great?

And let me know what gift you gave yourself and what epiphany you may have had...

Happy Tuesday!

Royal Fatfighting Tournament Tools: #4 The Pause that Empowers

After several good eating days, I had a setback at dinner Monday. I ate decently at breakfast. I ate well at lunch. I went to town at dinner. It was a slowly progressive binge.

So, I started reading A Cyberguide To Stop Overeating and Recover from Eating Disorders by Joanna Poppink, M.F.C.C.

As we all know by now, the only way to successfully lose weight and maintain the loss is to implement strategies from the start that bring new protections and better habits into our lives. Learning these strategies is easy for some, harder for others, but we all have to learn to eat differently and how to behave when we are tempted to return to old habits of overeating or bad eating.

In my case, even though I know I should at minimum STOP and CONSIDER what I am doing or am about to do, I didn't.

And I should have gotten the warning alarm the moment I woke up:

I slept badly. I felt tired from the moment I got up. So tired, so heavy in my bones, that I almost cancelled my Pilates session. I drooped. I ate and felt no pick-me-up from the coffee. I did breathing exercises. I talked positively to myself in the shower about having energy, being energetic, being UP.

It took all my strength to get through the Pilates session, and I couldn't do one of the exercises I had done in previous sessions (the side bend on the barrel). The oomph was gone by the time we got to it. I felt like crying. I was THIS near tears, because I felt like such a failure.

So...

1. I woke up tired from a bad night's sleep.
2. I felt massively disappointed by my exercise performance (despite my trainer's great reassurances that I did great and worked hard.)
3. I came home feeling even more drained.
4. Because I was tired, I burned hubby's dinner, which I let unduly upset me, and then I had to quickly think of an alternative.

I should have said, "Princess, you are having a bad day. What do you do when you have bad, tired, draining days. You eat. And then you eat some more. Time for a strategy, like a big bowl of a lite soup and extra water. Like a fiber drink to make your tummy feel expanded. Like a nap. Ask hubby for a massage. Something..."

I didn't stop and assess my feelings about my day. I just went with every impulse except one initial thought--I shot down the persistent urge to order a pizza. But after that, I went with the impulses, which were to lay on the couch between trips to the kitchen, where I had 2 huge bowls of arugula with tomato and Annie's Goddess dressing, a cup and a half of split pea soup, three ounces of asian pork tenderloin with a cup of fruity rice, a half cup of granola with non-fat milk, a single-serve organic cherry turnover-pie with coffee, and just barely manage to fight off a baked potato chips craving. That was the second time I fought off any eating cue.

Now, a year ago plus, I would have ordered that large pizza and garlic rolls and a Caesar salad, maybe some wings or fried zucchini. The very fact that I mostly had healthful stuff on hand is a testament to better food shopping choices. (That cherry pie, organic and single-serve--was in the freezer since February! I went and dug way in the back to find it.)

But it was still bad day, a setback, because I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW that I need to use the strategies, use the tools, and it starts with: SELAH. Pause and consider. Be aware. Self-examine. So I can choose better.

Had I taken 10 to 15 minutes to think and self-talk, I could have stopped after the first bowl of salad, the small piece of roasted pork tenderloin, and the fruited rice, and had a good night. It was the chain reaction, the thoughtless one that got me.

Hence, the tool of the pause for awareness. The tool of the awareness for a better selection of course(s) of action.

The Cyberguide I linked to above has exercises for overeaters (look at the links on that page and scroll to "Exercises to Avoid Overeating" in 10 parts).

I may have to create a chart for my fridge door. I had intended to print out a STOP AND THINK poster for it, and this is something for me to do TOMORROW!

I'm gonna have bad days--little sleep, low energy, depressive episodes. I need to get the tools ingrained to handle them.

Have you used the pause/self-examination to stop binges? Are they habits yet?

I'm working on it.

~~

Highest Ground

Stevie Wonder. Can't go wrong with da man. So, when you visit Til I Reach My Highest Ground blog, you get to groove to one of Little Stevie's (remember when they called him that?) best songs. Bop along. Burn a few calories.

Anyway, I dropped by and it's a cool blog--nifty artwork (the female illustration is how I've often envisioned myself in fantasies--the long heroine hair, the sleek physique, red dress, red lipstick (which I adore, and to heck with it's "aging" properties), the dusky skin, cause I was born with my natural tan!

I liked this quote from Oprah (talking about Marianne Williamson's counsel) from one of the recent posts:

In order to lose weight on a permanent basis, you want a shift in your belief about who and what you are. This is the miracle you seek.

I'm not on the same spiritual path as either of those famous ladies named above, but I am on one that also places a great deal of emphasis on faith, on believing, on the miraculous. And from what I've read (spiritually-based or psychologically-founded), believing in your ability to do better, be greater, achieve is essential. One must BELIEVE one can do great things in order to do them or one must believe in One who is The Greatest Of All working in us to do those great things.

Faith is a potent thing. Optimism is a powerful weapon. And self-understanding--learning why we want things, do things, don't do things--is invaluable. Necessary, even.

Why do we overeat? Is it just hedonism--all about the pleasure of food? Is it a chemical addiction to certain substances in what we eat? Is it bad habits developed from childhood? Is it the filling of an emotional void? Is it from boredom? Is it a way of expressing self-loathing? Is it a way to self-protect with maintaining fat? Is it laziness? Is it a physiology gone wacky keeping us from normal appetites?

What is it?

We need to learn the why, but then we also have to develop the "I can" that says no matter what the WHY is, we can overcome it, through force of will or through spiritual development, or through dependence on the God who is stronger than anything we can throw at ourselves or Him. Or through multiple tools, ideally.

I believe that a spiritual issue--sin--is part of my problem. I believe bad habits are part of my problem. I believe emotional eating is part of my problem. And a damaged body/physiology is also one of my burdens (autoimmune disorder, dead thyroid, etc).

It's a multi-prong attack I need: psychological, spiritual, behavioral.

I wouldn't be surprised if most of y'all need a multi-prong approach, too.

It's really exhausting, really intense to attack so many areas of weakness at once, and often I find that I'm shoring up this part while those other parts there and there and there are ganging up on me.

Maybe you, too, have multiple issues to address and it feels overwhelming.

Here's the thing: Believe you can do it. Believe you can learn what your purpose in life is, and that you can learn why you are damaging yourself with overeating and underexercising.

On days when you're sure you CAN'T, tell yourself over and over that you can. Others have done it. If another human being has done it, one with your similar situation, then you can. And I can assure you (and me) that others in our situation have done it. Just google up blogs and sites. Other folks with bad marriages, a history of abuse, chronic illnesses, financial struggles, a besetting set of sins, living in wartime, living with a dysfunctional family, dealing with bereavements, etc--these folks have overcome the odds and lost weight, started new careers, moved across continents, climbed mountains.

They didn't let obstacles keep them from the highest grounds.

Just think of someone like Lance Armstrong and what he did despite cancer taking its toll. Or Helen Keller. Or...your fave diet blogger. :)

Others have blazed dieting trails and told us the best tools for X and Y and Z issues.

You are never alone, really. Not as long as someone else showed the way.

I have to tell myself this every single day. That I can do it. That it's not impossible. That others have overcome and so can I.

It's still not ingrained. I have to consciously do it to keep myself from losing all the ground I've gained, which would only make it that much longer to get to my highest ground.

I believe that with my own surrender to God, first and foremost, in sync my own development of good habits (absolutely essential) and my own self-examination and self-understanding (can't skip this bit), I can make progress.

I believe with using tools, I can achieve the goal of greater health and less weight.

I believe with support from others, I can get through each day.

But I'm still a lazy butt too often (ie, just slip back into the self-pleasuring, easy way of eating too much). And I tend to isolate when I'm blue (depression plays its part). Those are really huge parts of the problem, too.

And our nation is set up to tempt us to eat. Just drive around and notice. Food, food, everywhere. Sights, smells, words drawing us in. It's like gluttony demons are running the food industry, I swear!

As a previous post said, change is hard. But staying obese is harder in the long run.

I believe I can change. I believe in a God who wants to help all His children achieve their purpose and overcome their temptations and set loose their self-destructive burdens. I believe in the power of our community to help us not give up, even when that's the only thing we really want to do.

Believe you won't give up. No matter what.

Every person out there has a purpose. We don't all know it for sure, what it is. Is it small, but important, or huge and important. It's always important. Is your purpose to help others achieve their weight goals? It might be. You never know! I've seen people with blogs that I find such a blessing, that I know one of their purposes is to offer that sort of exhortation and encouragement to me and others. Absolutely.

Fat gets in the way of so many purposes because it saps energy and causes loss of self-worth in too many of us.

Believe we are stronger than food, stronger than fat, stronger than laziness, stronger than our own insecurities, stronger than each one and all of our opponents and enemies.

Believe the highest ground is attainable.

Im so glad that I know more than I knew then
Gonna keep on tryin
Till I reach my highest ground
No ones gonna bring me down
Oh no
Till I reach my highest ground
Dont you let nobody bring you down (theyll sho nuff try)
God is gonna show you higher ground
Hes the only friend you have around

While I disagree with Stevie that God is our only friend, I do believe God is the most faithful friend and one available 24/7 for a lifetime. Which, well, is a very good and encouraging thing.

I also believe we can be friends to one another, with our words available for those who need it 24/7. That's not bad, huh?

So, if you're a praying sort, pray for us fatfighters today, would you?

Princess Pounds One Dragon Tonight

Well, hubby and I agreed to get Thai (delivered) for supper.

As I was checking the menu for the order, I felt that old, old urge to over-order. I stopped. Took a few breaths. Asked myself if I was in danger ordering.

Yes. The Overeating Ogre was knocking on my door. I thought about the facts: the restaurant portions are huge. Hubby and I do not like the same items. IT's not like we could share. I would, maybe, be too tempted to eat beyond a controlled portion.


I put down the menu. I decided no Thai delivery. Nope.

Hubby and I will make do with home-made, whole wheat pita pizza made with low-fat mozzarella. I can control the cheese on mine. I can control the size (one pita). I can add fruit and veggie to it. I can make iced tea. I can make some soup, if I need an extra bit of volume in the tummy.

Thai would have been delicious, yes, but Thai would have been, I'm sure, a mistake tonight. I was too ready to let the dragonfire consume me.

Princess gets this battle point.
~