Mid-Month Goals Update

Yes, that is the state of my bedroom, right now. I am in the middle of painting it--one of many goals for this month.

I had divided them up into three categories: Home, Health, and Hobby.

As far as the home goals go, I've only managed to start on the painting one, as you can see. But truly? That'll be enough. I've had some lovely weeks with less than twenty hours of work scheduled--but that will come to end rather soon.

My main push has been to establish some healthy habits using the MMEW Jumpstart Class to propel me onward. It's working!

 

 

I'm exercising.

 



Making my bed (ever since I read about the relationship between will-power and tidiness.)

yes, pulling up the covers totally counts

 



keeping a "five minute" journal

--all I have to do is write in it for five minutes before bed. I am finding this oddly comforting. I used to keep a journal....but I found it too cumbersome to keep up once I had kids. It turned into laments and lists. This time, my focus is on small wins.

Isn't it gorgeous? I bought it as a gift for someone--and then decided to give it to myself!

 

 

And, here we are, Day 14 of the Whole30.

 

 



As for my hobby, scrapbooking, I'm a bit taken aback that I haven't accomplished even one thing, yet. I haven't even taken any steps towards accomplishing anything. This is going to get away from me super-quick if I don't do something soon.

So, that's where I'm at, 15 days into January. How are you doing with your goal(s)?

Willpower and Tidiness

My grandmother was right.

 I really do need to make my bed everyday. But that I need to make it so I can lose weight (or do any other task requiring willpower) is a bit of an eye-opener!

Another simple old-fashioned way to boost your willpower is to expend a little on neatness. As we described in Chapter 7, people exert less self-control after seeing a messy desk than after seeing a clean desk, or when using a sloppy rather than a neat and well-organized Web site. You may not care about whether your bed is made and your desk is clean, but these environmental cues subtly influence your brain and your behaviour, making it ultimately less of a strain to maintain self-discipline. Order seems to be contagious. p. 252, Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney (2011: Penguin)

In Chapter 7, Tierney and Baumeister write, "When offered snacks and drinks, people in the neat lab room chose apples and milk instead of the candy and sugary colas preferred by their peers in the pigsty." (p. 156)

As well, it turns out that once you expend some will power putting good habits into place (and vanquishing bad ones) not only does life go a little more smoothly (avoiding those crises which require self-control to get through well) but it conserves your will power so that when the inevitable storms do hit you, you can weather them better.

This makes intuitive sense when you consider the tenure track professor, as they do. Those who wrote when they had bursts of inspiration tended not to get tenure as much as those who plodded along, writing or researching a bit every day. In fact the correlation between self-control, habits and desired oucomes was strongest for working and study habits--and weakest for dieting and exercise.

However, the idea of establishing certain habits to make the effort easier-- the more automatic something is, the less will power it takes to do it-- is worth exploring.

Some habits to develop (and some to continue):

1. Make the bed every day. (Just 'cause.)
2. Do the dishes before going to bed. (So the counters is clean and making breakfast is easier)
3. Put on my work out clothes every morning. (So I don't have to think about going back upstairs)
4. Tidy the living room before bed. (So there's room to move.)
5. Menu plan. (I could even expand this to include all my meals for the day, not just supper.)
6. Write it down. (I am actually keeping a "five minute" journal this month where I just take five minutes to write down how my day went with respect to sticking with the Whole30. Again, another idea from Willpower. Tracking --of any and all kinds-- is good.)


What habits would you put into place to make it easier to achieve your goals?

Small Wins: To Begin

My hubby took my picture when he picked me up after my first day of paid work in 17 years this fall. It was a huge win.

As far as I understand it (which may not be very far) a small win is something that moves you forward towards achieving your goal. Apparently, according to the research, it is the small wins which, over time, get you to your goal.

Say you had a goal of writing a novel. Getting up and meeting your word count for the day would be a "small win."

Losing weight-- which is part of my goal for my health this year --involves a myriad of small changes and hopefully a lot of small wins. To get the ball rolling, I have enrolled in a class by Cathy Zielske at Big Picture Classes called "Jumpstart." I plan to share the class with you while I work on it.

My first assignment was to make an introductory page with a favourite picture and my statement of intention. Getting that page done (above) is my first small win.

Journaling reads:

I am starting this year-- the year I am turning 50 --with a laser-intense focus on my health and vitality. My health rests on a tripod of great food, varied exercise, and sound sleep. I am going to use this program to help me establish some great habits -- for the rest of my life.

The Weight Loss Secret

disclaimer: I am not a doctor, trainer, nutritionist or any sort of scientist. I'm just an overweight woman who reads and thinks a lot. I may misunderstand what I've read. I may draw the wrong conclusions. I am no expert. I'm not even an expert amateur. As long as we have that out of the way, you may continue--


I have, as they say, fallen off the proverbial weight-loss wagon.

source: Jason Hickey at Flickr

Only I never called it that. I called it the "Wellness Wagon," but I thought, I really did, that eating properly and exercising would result in a little weight loss. Some. I wasn't expecting too much: just some sort of reward for my effort.

But there was none--oh, except for that dramatic change in my measurements: but somehow, that wasn't enough for me.

Then, my shoes seemed wonky.

I seemed to be wanting to do two mile workouts instead of just one. That took more time.

And eating more vegetables lasted about a week and a half.

So, after only a month, I quit.

I quit exercising.
I quit trying to eat more veggies.
I stopped eating my oatmeal for breakfast.
I stopped drinking my three to four pints of water a day.
I started eating more goodies: cinnamon crunchies, brownies, cheese cake, saltines, ice-cream, anything, anything, anything I could get my hands on and eat in great quantities.

Why?

I was doing some reading. Specifically, Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata. That book, as well as bits and pieces from the great tome by Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories (which prefaced his latest, Why We Get Fat) and the reading I did before Christmas from the book by Paul Campos, The Obesity Myth led me to feeling, well, honestly? Hopeless.

And then, like the nail in the proverbial coffin, Dr. Arya Sharma analysed a study where the good doctor concluded:

Thus, the laws of physics which would tell us that obese people gain weight because they simply eat more and move less don’t quite tell us why thin people can eat more and move less and still stay thin.

So if the obesity epidemic is not simply due to people becoming obese because they’re eating more and moving less (than thin people), then the solution is probably not in simply having them eat less and move more - which, incidentally, is probably why “eat-less-move-more” (ELMM) so seldom works.

source

But what else do we have?

And now I will tell you the well kept weight loss secret:

Nothing. We have nothing else. We know nothing else. And we don't know if we should even be advising weight loss.

Nonetheless, moving more and eating less--it is is what we have: and it does seem to work.
For a time.

See, even if you manage to lose more than 10% of your body weight, (or for some like me, where 10 per cent is a significant amount of weight all by itself) there doesn't seem to be any way to keep it off except struggling with your body and your appetite for a long, long time. How long? A year? Two years? Forever? When does the body say, ahhh, ok, I get it, this is the new weight now. We can stay here.

You see, it is NOT the case that after the effort to lose weight people simply return to their "old eating habits." (as the Wikipedia author of Yo-Yo dieting puts it. Something else may be going on--something not in your control at all.

Right now, my weight is stable. Remarkably so. I exercised nearly everyday for a whole month: and my weight didn't budge.

I didn't exercise and started eating like a maniac--and after four weeks I still weighed the same. (It only moved two weeks later: a gain of 3 pounds).

I was my own experiment in weight stability.

And I may be a fool to tinker with this stability. Destabilization could be worse than being fat.

It seems that it is not being fat which causes health problems, (for more on this, see The Obesity Myth as well as the movement called Health at Every Size) but being inactive and having bad eating habits. That's why I called what I was doing "wellness" (while, yes, filing it under weight loss.)

Destabilizing my weight, losing a bunch of pounds and then regaining them, known as yo-yo dieting, or weight loss cycling, could possibly the worst case scenario.* I could create health problems for myself.

This article lays out the problems succinctly, but let me summarize for you:

1. with weight cycling, a person has a higher risk of developing high blood pressure, gallbladder disease, heart disease and high cholesterol.
2. weight cycling has a profound effect on one's immunity. Gaining and losing and gaining (etc.) can permanently weaken one's immune system. Not good.
3. weight cycling is attributed to a higher rate of weight gain, psychological stress, improper body fat distribution, low metabolic rate and the highest BMI.

Whereas, if I stay fat?
Likely bad knees, a bad back and bad fashion.

So, all in all, it seems it is better to remain fat--while eating better and moving more.
And I feel like weeping.

_____________
*There is a distinction to be made between yo-yo dieting and weight cycling but the risks listed above are not differentiated.

Yo yo dieting is defined as an extreme condition which has two phases. The first, the diet phase, consists of a period of time in which calories are restricted at a level well below that needed to sustain one's weight and energy level. Often, people become irritable, obsessed with thoughts of food, depressed and fatigued. The second phase occurs once "normal" level of calories are re-introduced--"normal" being the amount of calories calculated to sustain a given person at a given weight at a given activity level. There are charts for such things--and they may be wildly inaccurate for any given individual. (It's just not as scientific as we could wish it to be. Studies have shown that this range of calories can be quite wide--up to a few hundred calories for women and several hundred for men.)

However, once the calorie restriction phase ends and the "re-feeding" stage begins individuals gain weight. They do not remain at the new weight. Their bodies pack on the pounds, as it were, sometimes at lightening speed. Many of these studies seem to suggest that it is the level to which calories were restricted, that is the rate of pounds lost which determines how successful one may be at maintaining the new weight: in other words, the slower the better. But how slow? And is that assumption even correct?

Another interesting thing to note is that exercise seems to be irrelevant to this process. That is, the metabolic damage occurs contingent upon the level of the calorie restriction involved and not the level of physical activity. Thus figure competitors training for a show or competition can experience the same metabolic damage evidenced by the rebound experience and subsequent health risks as the over-weight. That's because the weight gain and health difficulties are the consequence of starvation, and not weight loss per se.

Weight cycling is a more encompassing term. It includes the above and also any weight loss over any period of time and the gaining back of that weight (or more) at a later date over some other period of time (usually shorter than the amount of time taken to lose it, though not always.) See all the unknowns here? Yeesh.

One of many things I'd like to know: does the rate at which one loses weight have any bearing on one's ability to maintain it? If so, what will work? How can we figure out what will work for any given individual (because you can bet the farm it will be highly individual.) I remember reading once upon a time that losing a pound a week was a "safe" rate of weight loss. I never questioned the implication behind it--that losing more than one pound a week was unsafe. Unsafe in what way? Yet another unknown.

But I know this for sure: never, ever let those pounds creep up. And next time, lose weight before you quit smoking.

Something to Lose

It was odd, making up this page. I did it on Sunday, my 47th birthday and I felt pretty good about it all. In a month of moving (23/30 days) I've lost quite a few inches. So many, I wondered if I was measuring incorrectly!



Here are the stats:

bust: 1" gone

waist: 2" gone.

hips: no change (poot)

upper arm: 1" (a whole inch!)

and my upper thigh: 3 1/2" (I'd think there's some error there, but I've been doing a low impact aerobics--lots of toning of those upper thighs involved!)

The scale didn't budge. (+0.6lbs is a glass of water!)

But, as I didn't get a chance to work out on Monday, I thought and fretted about it all day long--now I've made some progress, now I have something to lose. I am scared to death of these pronouncements that individuals who "maintain" a significant weight loss do so with 60 to 90 minutes of exercise a day. I haven't got that sort of time--and I panic when I think that may be what it takes. So, I can't let my mind go there.

So, I focus on today. I am ansty for my workout. In fact, I'm anxious for it now, everyday. (yes, everyday.) While I'm sitting here freezing at the keyboard, I know that it will warm me up. I know I'll feel fantastic once I start the cool down stretching and that feeling will last for a few hours. My irritation level will decrease too, making me more pleasant to be around! It will also rev me up and give me more energy.

What it isn't doing is suppressing my appetite--though it isn't increasing it either! (Thank goodness.)

So, this month I want to focus on my emotions, food intake, hunger and fullness. I made a little form to keep track of it all. (Of course I did!) Should I decide to begin restricting my calories (which is not what I'm doing now. What I'm doing now is eating as well as possible.) I hope to have some useful data about how I eat, what fills me up (and what doesn't) and so on. Actually, I'm not entirely sure why I'm keeping track! It just seemed like a good idea. It is making me more conscious about what I'm eating--and that could be a good enough reason all on its own!

Two pages fit on one 8 1/2 x 11 page. Here's today' s (with breakfast filled in):

My resolution to eat more vegetables is going well. Last night at supper, in addition to the prodigious amount of onion in the beef stroganoff, we had boiled carrots, steamed spinach with garlic and roasted sweet potato chips on the side. Dessert was homemade cheesecake with lots of fresh berries, too.

(It was my husband's birthday!)

Goal: Eat More Veggies

As I sort out SMART goals from "learning/purpose" goals and continue to reflect on the distinction, I am going to stick with a "SMART" goal for eating more veggies this month.

Specific? Quite. I am simply going to include vegetables at lunch this week. Yes, sadly, that is sufficient to define "more."

Measurable. All I have to do is look at my plate: is there a veggie (or fruit) on it? Check.

Achievable: Eating nothing but veggies may be unachievable, but including some in my lunch should be more than doable. (Weird criterion. How is this different from the two above? Maybe it was needed so the acronym would work.)

Realistic: As long as I'm not relying on fresh tomatoes, we're good.

Timely. I'm planning on doing this conscientiously and deliberately for the next week. After that, who knows. I'm "looking for" a few staple lunches I can eat over and over again without having to think too hard or spend more than 10 minutes dishing it out.

I am great for planning dinner. But lunch has always been a challenge. I decided to start planning lunch a few months ago, but I've been rather half-hearted about it. The boy loves rice: he'll make a great pot of basmati and dig into it for days, plain. More often than he should, though, he also eats chicken nuggets and breaded fish from a box and swedish meatballs: I have been letting him heat up one of these nasty choices--and making Kraft Dinner when called upon to make an effort. We are not big on eating leftovers, unfortunately. However, part of wanting to be more healthy is to eat more healthily, right? So, here are my lunch plans for next week: I don't know what my son is going to eat.

Sunday:
Actually, this will be a brunch made with homemade waffles, fresh fruit and yogurt --or whipped cream if I can get it. It is my birthday, after all!

Either Sunday night or Monday I will make a soup for my husband to take to work for lunch. (He heats it up in the microwave.) This week I have planned to make Mark Bittman's Two Pea Soup with Frizzled Ham, from The Food Matters Cookbook.) I reserve the right to have a bowl at any time!

Monday:
More-Veggies Less-Egg Frittata from Mark Bittman's Food Matters Cookbook. (About 1 1/2 cups sauteed veggies bound with an egg per person, plus onion, herbs and parmesan cheese.)

Tuesday:
"Oven-fried" Fish and oven roasted potatoes with oven roasted beets and parsnips.

Wednesday:
Spinach, onion and cheese quesadillas.

Thurday:
Ham, raw spinach and carrot wrap. (This really is more of a summer choice.)

Friday:
Grain Bowl.
(1/2 cup cooked grain, 1/2 cup beans, with 1 cup sauteed veggies.)

Saturday?
Ugh. Looking at this list of healthy food, I'm feeling the urge for the orange stuff in the blue box. If I mix in some frozen peas, will it count? I'm kidding, but barely. I have no idea what to prepare. The best thing to do would be to pick something from up above and repeat it. There's quite enough variety to keep me going. Really, I only need three or four seasonal lunches to alternate. However, some of Bittman's "salads" looks enticing, so maybe I'll pick one.

Sunday:
leftovers.

And there we have it.
What are you having for lunch next week?

Moving More, Eating Less: Officially Begun.

I've done this before: set myself up and "declared" I was going to start working out and eating not only better food, but less of it. And it came to naught but egg on my face (except for that stellar effort back in the Spring and Summer of 2009 when I lost 40, count 'em, 40 whole pounds!).



So, this is the layout I created in December when I thought I would start dealing with my weight and wellness issues again. If you read the journaling, you'll see that I was very careful not to commit to actually doing anything. I was acknowledging there was a problem: I was reading all sorts of web-things about how my mind needs to be "tuned" while I get my body reshaped. I took a real-age questionnaire and realized I was much older than my actual years. Things really started to rearrange themselves around in my head though, when I began reading Marianne Williamson's "A Course in Weight-Loss."

Then, I read the Obesity Myth and decided that the most important thing I could do for my health and well-being was to get fit. That's all. No focus on the numbers on the scale, no food charts, no wrestling with God required.

And, as a result, organically and without self-flagellation, I began to move. And I'm still moving.

A Day of Good Eatin'

My "diet" is a portion controlled plan based on 1600 calories per day. I've made up a chart based on old Weight Watcher's food diaries from the 80's. I try and ensure I eat everything on my chart.



Just for fun, I took pictures of everything I ate on Wednesday. I love eating this way.

Breakfast.
(That's a one-egg omelette. Honest.)



Lunch.
(The wrap unwrapped).



Snack the First
(More about this incredible book, later).



Dinner.
(with milk)



Snack the second.
(That's 1/2 cup of blueberries hiding under that yogurt. And those are raspberries from our very own bushes.)



That's all the boxes ticked but one portion of a "grain." Since I went over by one portion in that category by eating a home made Lemon-Raspberry muffin on Tuesday, I figured all was good. A pint of water accompanied me to bed.

Truth or Dare

Back in January, I promised myself I would keep my counter top clear--in other words, I would do my dishes every night before bed.

As I started this weight loss journey (which is going quite well, thank you!) I realised I'd have to commit to it again--only this time I'd have to find a way to hold myself accountable. So, I figured I would take a picture of the counter top every night and when the week was up, I would post them. I'm not sure why. I do know that the very thought of doing this motivated me every single night those counters were cleared--to the point where they wouldn't have been cleared otherwise. And on the nights it wasn't enough to motivate me---well, I burned supper Sunday night and tackling burned pots and pans is a time consuming business around here. And Monday was very, very busy. My husband said he would do up the dishes for me--I snapped the picture just as he was about to make himself a snack (thus the peanut butter on the counter.).

So, here's the truth.





and, last night:


And I commit to the same deal for next week.
Keeps me honest.

(some of this is cut and pasted from blog at 3FC)
Thank you all very much for your kind comments on the last post. I appreciate it.

Day 1

I finally did it.

I stopped waiting for the weather to improve (minus 21 C. at the moment).

I've been reading all kinds of "diet" books and I kept coming back, you guessed it, to exercise. Without it, once I'm putting healthy stuff into my body, what I eat, when I eat it, and how much I eat is never going to make one whit of difference to the size of my derriere. So, a bit of research, here and a request to the library there and it is done.

Let me just say I'd forgotten how wonderful endorphins truly are. And, even better, both kids did the one mile with me.

Twenty minutes.

That's all.

Lunch

1 largish whole wheat Tortilla spread with

1/2 tsp (or so) humus, covered in

fresh spinach leaves, smothered with

grated carrot, topped with

sliced green pepper and

mushroom and

roasted ham, drizzled with about

1/2tsp Newman's Own Italian Dressing, "Balsamic Vinigrette."

Roll it.

Eat it.

Don't let it go.

BIT, Bob, and Breakfast.

I hate to promote any one person's weight-loss and fitness regime because there are many worthwhile ones out there. However, I need structure and Mr. Greene's is as good as any. (For the record, I like Dr. Andrew Weil, too, and his program is even broken down into 8 weeks, but I don't happen to have a copy of his book.)

Mr. Bob breaks things down into phases--and this is its major attraction to me. The first phase is supposed to take 4 weeks (or so) and focuses on making changes in your habits. This is good. I have terrible habits when it comes to eating and excercising. (As if that's news).

Truthfully, this is a focus I can live with. The feverish attempt to lose weight is anathema to me...and in a way, that's fortunate. It means I've never yo-yoed. I have a pretty clean track record when it comes to trying to lose weight, per se. I think that's a good thing, physically speaking.

According to the theory of having a "set-point" (a weight at which your body goes into ultra conservativative hang-on-to-the-fat-or-die mode), yo yo-ing (going on and off diets continually with the consequent results of going up and down the scales) messes with your set-point and, supposedly, "sets" it higher each time. So, if the theory is correct, I don't have a messed up set-point--which may or may not mean anything.

What I want is a healthier lifestyle--a more functional and healthier relationship to life--not necessarily just my body. So, with that in mind....

Here are the objectives for Phase 1:

1) Increase my activity level.

2) Stop eating 2 hours before bed-time. (aack!)

3) Eat three meals, including a nutrious breakfast, plus at least one snack, daily.

4) Stay hydrated. (48 oz of water a day.)

5) Eliminate alcohol. (um, ok. Done. It's not that I don't drink, I just, um, don't drink.)

6) Take daily supplements.

The biggies, here, are 1), 2), and 3).

I plan to do my best to meet these objectives. But what I am NOT willing to do, at least not yet, is change what I eat. For example, the yogurt breakfast, a la Bob Greene is fat free plain yogurt, topped with fruit, nuts, a little honey and (if you like) a spoonful of flaxseed or wheat germ or a couple of spoonsful of low fat granola.

The yogurt breakfast, a la moi is 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt (4% M.G.) with 2/3 cup Quaker "Harvest Crunch." (I only know this because I actually measured this morning.) I throw on a handful of blueberries when I have them. Mmmmm.

I've mixed honey into plain non-fat yogurt before: it's time consuming and the taste takes getting used to. On my previous "diet" --a home made version of weight watchers-- I could only eat it with half an apple cut up into it along with cinnamon and nutmeg. Plain non-fat yogurt is just vile. And I bet French women don't bother. ;)

In winter, I like Red River cereal with a handful of dried cranberries. Oh, and brown sugar.

Perhaps this reluctance to alter what I eat will change. Anything is possible. But eating breakfast, in and of itself, will be a huge change for me. (Normally, breakfast is, well, let's just say lots and lots of coffee and...cigarettes.)

And that's enough for now.

Isn't it?