Time is a Funny Thing

Here I am, at the computer once again, after taking my husband to the bus stop, getting the older kids off to school, and settling my youngest in front of the some cartoons while I enjoy my morning coffee. Each morning this week I've gone through this same routine. Usually I cut myself off by 8am in hopes of being the most productive little stay-at-home wife and mother I can be, but for some reason this week I can't seem to get my butt into gear.

This stay-at-home thing is new to me. I lost my job of 5 years in early July, and have since decided that I'm needed more at home than in the workforce. For the first few weeks, I was the most productive thing in the world. I organized closets. I washed sheets. I made beds. I paid bills. I did it all. Now, about 6 weeks into this new endeavor, I'm finding that I don't have time to get these things done. Ironically, I did have enough time to spend 3 hours in front of the computer looking at accessories for my Aerogarden. Funny.

I come from a long line of women with serious time management issues. I have also managed to spawn another carrying on the tradition. When my mom asked my daughter why she didn't practice piano this week, she said "well I really didn't have time. I've been SOOOO busy. Mom made me go to the gym after school this week, AND she has been making me go to the bus stop each evening to pick up Daddy". She didn't mention that she also played with friends and had sleepovers all weekend, and her excuses don't really hold up. It's about a 15 minute ordeal to go to the bus stop, and the gym thing was foiled by my youngest daughter's fussiness that particular time. The thing is, she really, truly believes that she doesn't have time to practice. Hearing her talk about her busy life got me thinking...

Do we have more time than we think we have? Are we prisoners of our extremely hectic schedules, or do we make a choice to have a hectic lifestyle by not managing our time? I highly suspect this to be the case. I guess it all comes down to priorities. What are they and what should come first? I guess my main priorities look something like this (in no particular order):

• Keep a Clean Home and Laundry Done


• Marathon Training


• Raise Well Rounded, Well Behaved Kids


• Budgeting/Billing


• Prepare Healthy Meals and Lunches


• Maintain My Personal Appearance

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I think this is a good list to start from. Notice how my personal appearance came last. Not on purpose, but I just thought of it last. I always make excuses that I don't have time to fix myself up each day. I spend most weekdays in workout type clothes, and usually feel so bad about my appearance anyway that I feel like no amount of make up or hair product is really going to help. The fact is, there IS time to make myself look better and feel better. I just have to decide that it is a priority. This week I'm going to make a plan of attack for managing all this along with some much needed free time. I'll get started on it right after I check Facebook. :-)

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Calling All Weight-Watchers GAGers

Hi Gals,

I wanted to quickly reach out and see if any of you following Weight-Watchers would like to meet weekly online (maybe AOL or some other agreed upon chat room) to discuss the program and hot weight-loss topics and challenges. We could do it on Tuesdays since that is our weigh-in day for GAG.

I used to do the meetings, but I lost my job about a month or so ago and don't have the extra money to dish out for the meetings. Since I stopped weight watchers, I've lost only .4 lbs. I know it works when I do it. Is anyone interested in showing up for an online meeting??

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Workout Plan, Next 7 Days

Here's the Plan -

Tuesday - 60min Run (including 4 x 400 sprint) - Done
Wednesday - Cross Training Day - P90X Plyometrics Workout
Thursday - Bridge Repeats- 4 miler
Friday - Power Yoga
Saturday - 8 miler w/ CLFC
Sunday - Rest
Monday - Easy 4 miler - 5mph

I know I really need some strength training elements in here other than the WAVE, but until the baby gets over her teething, I doubt I'll be able to go to the gym for a while.

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GAG - Week 1, Day 1 - Frightful Photos In Da House!

Well here they are folks. Kudos to all of you GAGers who knocked out this unpleasant task first think in the morning. I had to work up the courage to take the photos. So the plan is to follow weight-watchers and keep on runnin'. I can't wait to spend more time reading all the GAGer blogs. I'm also anxiously awaiting the team assignments.

Well I'm off for another attempt at a run today. My two oldest are at piano lessons and the baby is asleep, so it seems that I might finally get some me time. I hope everyone is having a wonderful first day!

Good Luck Everyone!

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Another Bad Run

Just coming in from bad run and feeling totally down in the dumps. Why is it that a 7 mile run can feel easy 3 days ago and yet today I can hardly put one foot in front of the other?? I guess I know the answer to that question. It's my life!

Don't worry. You won't find a lot of self pity or excuses here. I'm a very positive person with a can-do attitude, but I'm running into some road blocks that have been hard to overcome these days. My kids are 10, 3 and 9months. Each of them is going through some kind of stage that requires my full attention 24/7. My 10 year old has a terrible attitude, along with a medical condition that has me worrying about her all the time. My 3 year old is afraid of the potty, and my 9 month old is just plain spoiled and won't let me leave her at the gym daycare even for an hour. I've been trying to take my family to the YMCA two nights a week. I pack my husbands things, pick him up from work, and haul the four of them to the gym in hopes of getting a run in, but this last time, like the 3 times before it, I have been interrupted by my son's pooping issues or my daughter's fussiness. I went to bed last might feeling utterly defeated.

The marathon program goes something like this:

Saturday - Long Run
Sunday - Off
Monday - 40 mins easy
Tuesday - 45 Tempo Run
Wednesday - Cross Training
Thursday - 4 mile Hill Repeats
Friday - Active Rest

I'm struggling to come up with a routine that is kid proof. On Saturdays, I run with a group while my husband watches the kids. I live for these days. Thursday hill repeats are pretty safe as well. I run those with a group at 4am on a giant bridge with a group (and heckling truck drivers), but the other mid-week runs are hit or miss. Because I only got 15 minutes in at the Y yesterday, I woke up around 4am to hit the road, but I couldn't bring myself to stay out for more than 25 mins. I even walked quite a bit during that time. I have a treadmill that I will try to use today for a while during nap time if by some stroke of luck I actually get them to sleep at the same time.

On another note, today starts the GAG Challenge: http://gag2009.blogspot.com/2009/08/day-before.html. It's a 16 week concentrated effort on fitness and weight loss. Later today I'll be posting my weight and body pics (gulp). The idea is that the GAG Challengers will all be working to win prizes and compete with each other to lose the most weight, but really we will all be winners. It's more about community and support. The challenge ends on 12/22. I lost my job (4 hours before going on my summer vacation..go figure) in early July and have only lost .4 lbs in about 2 months. You would think that running 20+ miles a week would help, but I guess I've been taking the carb loading principle a little too seriously.

TTFN

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Long Time Gone

I can't believe I am sitting here typing a blog entry after months and months. I could go on and on about the reasons I stopped, but all that stuff is BORING! Instead, I'll spend a moment bringing you up to speed so we can move forward from here.

Bottom line: It's been about 6 months or so since I started this blog. I never would have dreamed that I would still be overweight at this point, but here we are and so it is. I've lost about 30lbs in this 6 months, as well as gained a tremendous amount of physical fitness, but I'm still about 30 lbs from goal. Oh well. I'm over it.

During this 6 month time, I gradually gained enough physical strength and cardio health to run and run far (not fast). I joined 2 amazing running groups about 4 months ago. One is a local club and the other is a marathon/half marathon training group. Currently, I'm in training for the Austin marathon taking place on 2/14. :-D

I'm so glad to be back on blogger and look forward to reaching out to all my old blogging buddies and making new friends.

You may have noticed that I've changed my blog title. My fitness lifestyle has evolved and thus my title was a little outdated. I hope you can all still find me.

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You're Only As Fat As You Feel

I can't believe it has been a week since I've posted! Life has really gotten in the way this past week. I am doing great and losing fat little by little, but I do have a little confession to make...

I haven't been keeping up with my Bodybugg program at all. It isn't that I'm not eating well or exercising, because I'm doing great in those departments. I'm just letting go of the strict food logging and calorie counting, which negates the use of the Bugg. I'm able to "eye" my portion sizes and eat within my desired calorie range out of habit now, which is great. I still use the Bugg during workouts and when I want to do experiments with it, but as for the actual program, I'm done. If anyone is thinking of buying the BodyBugg, I would recommend it 100%. I can't begin to describe how much it has totally changed the way I think about physical activity. I have a much healthier outlook on things. I used to be all or nothing when it came to exercise, but now I know that everything you do adds up. I'm going to continue to post about my various experiments with the Bugg for sure.

Along with the Bugg program went the weigh-ins. I'm just not going to weigh-in for a while. I'll track my progress with pictures, clothes and overall emotional health. I believe it was important for me to weigh-in at first, but every time I do it now, I just get disappointed and the rush of negative energy takes over despite any progress I have made. I feel amazing right now. I feel at least 2 sizes smaller than I actually am, and I think that is OK. As long as I'm using this positive energy to push me even harder, what is the harm in feeling thinner than I actually am? I don't care if it takes me 2 years to reach my goal weight if I feel like I'm alive and living right now.

So over the course of the journey so far, I've made some great progress physically. I'm stronger. I'm slimmer. My skin looks amazing. I'm actually having to pack away (burn) various clothes and wear some new things. All of this is wonderful, but the real progress has been mental. I've let go of guilt. I've let go of self hatred and past failures. I'm looking forward now, and not just forward to the end of the weight-loss, but forward to the rest of my life from now into old age. Instead of feeling like I'm putting my life on hold until I lose weight, I feel like I've already begun my new life in which I love myself and deserve everything I used to reserve for thin people or "skinny val".

Now all of this sounds great, but I'm not so naive as to think I have it all this figured out. I don't. What I have figured out is that this is a process in which we all help each other get just a little stronger everyday. We can't do this overnight, and we can't do this alone. I've also figured out that it isn't about dieting, but rather incorporating healthy habits into our daily lives and keeping those habits over time.

I'm reading this really great book called The Weight-Loss Diaries by Courtney Rubin. Link to Amazon I'm only about half way through it, but I've laughed and cried like 10 times already. It has given me faith that we can lead normal, healthy lives no matter how seriously screwed up our relationship might be with food. It's out of stock on Amazon, but you can get it for 5 bucks plus shipping through their partners.



A word on my strategy this week:



Exercise - Alternating biggest loser and Jillian DVDs 6 days this week. These really combine cardio and strength, so I'm killing two birds with one stone. This isn't as structured as real strength training, but this is good for my fitness level. I'm working all muscle groups and really getting my heart pumping. I'm seeing results and feel a "sweet burn" to quote Tosca Reno after my workouts.



Diet - I've found that it works better for me to eat the same things for my early meals and then mix it up a little for dinner. I'm also consuming more fuel during mid-afternoon and really eating smaller meals in the evening. I'm really not hungry at night.



Sleep - I'm really learning that sleep is crucial to my mental well being and the stability of my healthy habits as I work to establish them. I'm shooting for 7 - 9 hours on most nights.



Other - Another observation I've made is that stress is a large contributor to my self-destructive behavior. My new habits are getting stronger, but they are still vulnerable, so I'm doing what I can to safeguard my mental well being and eliminate stress where possible. This week I'm going to focus on making sure I go to be with the house picked up so that when I wake up in the morning, it's nice and tidy. I'm also going to make sure I have my workout clothes ready for the morning. Baby steps....

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Amazing Clean Eating Chili

My husband made an amazing chili this weekend. It was super fast and easy. I mean he made it himself so it had to be pretty easy. ;-) We made a giant pot, so this recipe could be halved and still feed 4 people I think.

2 packages Extra Lean Ground Turkey (2.5 lbs total)
1 envelope McCormick Low Sodium chili powder
2 cans Organic Red Kidney Beans rinsed well
2 cans Organic Tomato Paste
2 cans Organic Tomato Sauce (check label for added sugars)
1 large jar of chunky salsa (all natural, check label)

Reduced Fat Sour Cream (organic/all natural) - optional
Reduced Fat Cheese - optional
Beer - this isn't a clean eating choice, but I'm including it here because my husbands original recipe calls for it. We didn't use it last time. I didn't miss it.

Brown turkey in a large skillet. Add chili seasoning to the meat and stir in to coat meat with seasoning. The turkey will be dry because it is so lean, so I add a tablespoon of water to help the coating process.

In a large pot, combine all the other ingredients (including can of beer if you are going that route) and stir well. Then add the meat/seasoning mixure. Cook on medium high heat until mixture is hot, then reduce heat and simmer for an hour to two hours.

Top with cheese and sour cream if you wish. It does add something extra, but the chili is good by itself as well.

Enjoy!

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Before and After Pics - 4 Weeks

Well it's been a little over a month that I've been eating clean, using the Bugg and working out on a regular basis. I haven't gotten on the scale in about a week, and honestly, I might not for a while. I'm in a good place mentally, and while I'd like to make sure I'm on track with my BodyBugg program, I'm scared that my positive attitude will turn into desperation if I don't see the numbers I want.

Hopefully you can tell that the picture on the bottom is the "after" picture. I think there are some notable difference here. My face is starting to look more recognizable to me. I honestly don't recognize the person in the "before" pic and hardly the "after" pic either. I'm still about 20lbs heavier right now, after this 3rd kiddo, than I have ever been at any other point in my life, but it's ok. I'm doing something about it....

Instead of being worried about how large I was the day I took that "before" picture, I should have been thinking about the quickest means to burn that shirt/undershirt combo! I actually went to the gym like that. Oh man! The camera never lies!

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Damn that Jillian Michaels!

This has been my first week back at work. It hasn't been as stressful as I thought it would be. In fact, having my 3 year old son home all the time is WAY more stressful. I'm working now, so I'm not really feeling the gym in the middle of the night thing anymore. I just can't function without sleep, so I've been working out during my lunch break with workout videos at home. I've been doing some experiments the my BodyBugg to see which videos burn the most calories in the shortest amount of time. I think I found the mother of all videos today.

Here's a link to it on Amazon. They show some clips there as well.

Even running, my burn rate on the BodyBugg gets up to about 9 cals/min tops. With this workout, I saw my burn rate get up to 12.1!!! It is hard. I mean like I wanted to die and my face was bright red for hours afterward, but THIS is how to change your body. I burned nearly 600 calories in an hour and half. The video itself is only 45 minutes long. She does circuits and also talks through some of the methodology behind what she is having you do and why.

I also think this Biggest Loser workout is incredible. It also got the calories burn rate up extremely high. This DVD is really cool because it's cheap and you can customize it to play the different sections in whatever order or number of times you want. All three Biggest Loser trainer are featured in this one, but Jillian's 10 minutes segment burns as much as Bob's 20 minute segment. She is a machine. It really is no wonder that she has trained most of the actual winners from the show.

Here's a link to this one on Amazon as well. This one is a little cheaper.

Parts of these are also free on-demand if you have Comcast cable service. Good luck!

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Too Much, Too Soon

I had a crappy weigh-in this week. :-( I'm not really surprised. I had several "bad" days where I didn't fully account for my calories using my BodyBugg. I even had a day where I ate cake, chocolate and pizza, without much regard to how much, although I didn't stuff my face or anything. It was classic stress eating. There were a lot of negative emotions going on this week. I was down on myself for failing. I've also been stressing out about returning to work next week, as today marks my last day of maternity leave. Because my resolve is strong, I know that this is simply an "off" week and that I will be back on track going forward, but this has forced me to seriously take a look at my approach.

I've adopted several new things all at once. I've started using BodyBugg. I've started going to the gym and weight training. I've also started a "clean eating" lifestyle. All of these things are wonderful and should help me attain my goal of losing weight and being healthy. Unfortunately, as I discovered this week, although my commitment is there, this new lifestyle is still fragile and can't handle a lot of external factors. I've identified some key factors that contributed to this week's poor results.

• My dad's birthday was this past weekend. I gave myself permission to have a small piece of cake and ice cream, but what I found is that my clean eating habits aren't well enough established to allow for sugar from time to time. It just started a string of cravings, and later, negative emotions as I gave into those cravings.


• I'm stressed out beyond belief about going back to work. I hope I can handle it all. The baby is only sleeping through the night occasionally, which leads me to my final challenge.


• Going to the gym in the middle of the night is not sustainable. I feel tired and can't wake up and take care of my business. I need to have the evenings to relax. Working out in the morning is the only way for me right now. This means the gym is out since I have the baby home. She also has a medical condition that makes me hesitant to put her in the gym daycare. I bought a weight bench and videos to help me get in a little extra activity.

All of these things contributed to a sense of feeling defeated this week. So, upon a great deal of reflection, I've come up with a new approach that allows me to forgive myself a little and focus on the task at hand.

1. Clean eating is the way I want to eat, but it is OK if I don't eat perfectly clean for every meal. Because losing weight is my primary goal this year, I will focus on eating cleaner, but still focusing more on calorie counting/deficit management, including allowing some diet foods that aren't 100% clean. If I manage my caloric deficit, I will lose weight whether I eat clean or not. Cooking for my family in the evenings has been so beneficial to everyone, so I will continue to make that a priority. My daughter has dropped a few pounds. We went clothes shopping for her yesterday. She was actually enjoying it instead of crying her eyes out when things didn't fit exactly right.


2. Exercise will help me lose weight faster, but I don't have to exercise to lose weight. While exercise will continue to be an important part of my lifestyle, I am going to focus more on being more active in my daily life and less about how many sets of how many reps of whatever exercise i have to do on whatever day. The structure is causing me to feel like a failure if I don't do it exactly right, and because feeling like a failure leads to self-destructive behavior, I'm letting go of it for now. I have the rest of my life to have a structured gym/lifting schedule. Right now, while I have so young kiddos and work full time, I will focus on being active and do what I can when I can.

Despite this horrible week, I'm still smaller than I was when I started this adventure 4 weeks ago. I had hoped to be about 12 lbs down by now, but I will accept the 4 - 5 I have actually lost and make the changes needed to be successful during the next 4 weeks. :-)

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Biggest Loser Night BodyBugg Experiment

So, like many other overweight Americans, I was glued to the TV tonight for The Biggest Loser. It was a shame that Joelle screwed things up for Carla, and let's face it, she REALLY needed to be there. I can't believe their friendship is ruined. Oh well, enough about that...

A few weeks ago, Bob Harper said that you could burn 300 calories by jogging in place during the commercials while watching the show. My daughter and I put this to the test tonight. I didn't count the number of commercial breaks, but I worked up a good sweat each time. At one point, they were breaking about once every 12 minutes. I found that my knees could hold out for a while and recover during the break just fine. Ok, now for the results....

During the 2 hours prior to starting The Biggest Loser, I was on the couch watching Jeopardy, then the Simpsons, and doing a scratch off lotto tickets with my husband (my guilty pleasure). I burned 202 calories during that time. Afterward, I sent my husband upstairs, so as not to be mortified by the living room workout session, and simply jogged in place during commercial breaks. I threw in a few jumping jacks and squats from time to time, but mostly I kept a easy paced jog. As it turns out, Bob was right! I burned an extra 366 calories on top of what I would have just sitting there. My total calorie burn for those 2 hours came to 568 calories! Not too shabby! I think it's safe to say that Tuesdays will be Biggest Loser Nights for as long as the show is running. :-)

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Clean Eating Tools & Resources

I've come across some really awesome things to support a clean eating lifestyle and thought I'd pass them along.

This is a blender that makes amazing protein shakes in a flash. It has interchangeable parts and clean-up is a snap. It also makes great homemade hummus. The infomercial is really corny, but it does show the product off well. Click for Infomercial I bought mine on Amazon.com. Here's a link: Magic Bullet Deluxe-22-pc Blender Set,1set

If you are eating clean, you know that the shelf live of produce isn't very long. These bags keep your fruit and vegetables fresher longer. You'll still have to go often, but this gives you a few extra days and saves money in the long run. Debbie Meyer Storage Bags/ Bonus 30 Pack (Medium and Large) There are several YouTube videos showing these off, but I like this one. watch here

Of course, the ulitmate clean eating resources are Tosca Reno's books. I have all of them and use them every day for recipes and reference. I have a list of them over in the right column on this blog under "I Recommend". I also found Tosca's blog on Blogger! http://www.eatcleandiet.blogspot.com/

Last, but not least, Oxygen Magazine and Clean Eating Magazine. These are wonderful resources for clean eating and training smart!

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Week 3 Progress Update

It's time to post my Week 3 pictures, but my picture taker is in school right now, so I promise to get them up later today. I'm closing out Week 3 and heading into Week 4 at this point. Here is a quick summary of my progress so far.

Pounds lost - about 5
Five pounds in 3 weeks probably doesn't seem too great, but I'm training so hard that my muscles are in a constant state of repair. I know that I've lost more fat than 5 pounds. I've been tracking my measurements and plan to post a nice little graph showing my progress in a more accurate way. :-)

Eating Clean Update
This is going very well so far. My skin looks amazing and I do feel in control of things. I got a little off track this weekend, but nothing I can't recover from easily. I've learned that the real way to avoid pitfalls is by having food available on hand. I'm going to spend some time today cooking things I'll need to have available this week. I've discovered some items this week that I'm going to share in a separate post.

Exercise Update
While I'm still training hard everyday, I am unable to run on the treadmill anymore. Despite my daily dose of Glucosamine, my knees are protesting the impact. My knees were already bad, and trying to run on them as a nearly 200 pound person isn't working out. The Bodybugg gets up to about a 9 to 10 cal/min burn rate when I run. I haven't been able to top that with the other machines. The truth is that I'm just going to have to drop some pounds before I can run. The stepmill and the elliptical are my new machines of choice. I've also been doing WiiFit during the day, which has been fun. I plan on doing a WiiFit/BodyBugg experiment this week. If you aren't familiar with the Nintendo Wii, or WiiFit, I'll be posting on it soon.

Strength training is going pretty well. I still haven't claimed my place in the free-weight area at the gym, but I did buy weights and a bench to use at home. My weight training has been fairly unstructured up to this point. I've been doing machines at the gym and lifting enough weight to get a nice burn, but I didn't doucment what I did or do the same things in any sort of pattern as I had hoped to. This week I will add some consistency and documentation. Wish me luck!

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Let's Catch Up

I know I've been MIA for a while, but things have been really busy around here. Here's a quick weekend recap:

Friday was "date night". The first since the baby has been born, and honestly, the first since before I became pregnant. It had been almost a year. My mom watched the kids overnight so that we could sleep in and have a romantic evening (if you know what I mean). I spent most of the day Friday looking for something to wear that I would feel good in. Despite the fact that I have noticeable fat loss, finding something to wear that I felt good in proved to be an enormous challenge. I did finally settle on something, and date night went well. My husband has really been amazing with this weight problem I'm tackling. I really don't look like someone he would actually be with, but I'm working on it everyday. He treats me just as though I am "skinny me", which is honestly amazing and I'm so grateful for his support.

Saturday was spent sleeping, as we stayed out really late and I also had an upset stomach.

Sunday was the Superbowl, but we really aren't big football fans. I did fall off the clean eating wagon by eating some birthday cake I had for my dad last night. I also just overate a little in general, but mostly because I didn't eat enough the days before. I feel OK about it. I'm back on track today. :-)

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My Family :-)

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A Life Worth Living....Now

So today was weigh-in day. I lost 1.8 lbs, which is just shy of my 2lb goal for the week. Overall I'm happy with the results, although my dream of just dropping the weight with ease is pretty much squashed. I've always dropped weight quickly in the beginning of any diet, but not anymore. I don't know if this has anything to do with the fact that I'm getting older or what, but in any case, we are looking at a long road ahead. At this rate, I won't really consider myself an acceptable size for another 6 months.

Do you ever find yourself daydreaming of all the things you are going to do or wear when you lose weight? I do all the time. After much consideration, I've decided not to wait 6 months to do those things. Whether it be a new outfit, an event, or even dinner out with my husband, I've somehow convinced myself that because I'm overweight, I don't deserve to enjoy these things. This is crap. Six months of living this way, just waiting to be "thinner", will be hell on earth, just as every moment of being and feeling fat has been. I'm ready to start living NOW. The change in lifestyle is just a small, but nessesary, part of a life I will start letting myself enjoy.

What took me so long to finally realize that I deserve it all? :-)

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Desperation, My Old Friend

Despite all of the positive things I wrote about here over the last week, yesterday I began to feel that desperation return. Despite my best efforts to head off bad thoughts and negativity, I felt hopeless again. I am still having thoughts like, 'Why are my pants still tight?', 'Why do I actually feel fatter today than 2 days ago?', 'What will I do if the scale doesn't show a loss this week?'. Then I get angry at myself for not doing better and wonder what is wrong with me, and for the first time in weeks, I wanted food to make me feel better.

I did NOT eat. I really wanted to, but I did not. I feel like my body may be holding on to the weight because I still have pregnancy hormones running about in my system. I seem to remember this happening last time I had a baby. Whatever the reason, it sucks. I don't know for sure that I haven't lost weight, but I'm scared to check.

I am totally committed to this healthy way of losing weight and taking care of myself, so I will press on, but it's really hard. Another downer was not being able to go to the gym last night because my 8 week old baby didn't go to sleep until 11:30pm. There was nothing I could do. I just barely met my targets, but they were met. I honestly don't know what to do other than just keep doing what I'm doing and not let my desperation ruin this. I'm doing the right things. There is no possible way that this lifestyle and activity level will not help me to drop pounds. ((sigh))

I'm going to work my butt off today to try and make up a little of the gym time lost yesterday. Let's just hope the little angel cooperates tonight. I'm also going to adjust my BodyBugg program so that it let's me measure success in inches instead of pounds. The tape measure seems to be way less intimidating at the moment.

Happy Monday!

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More Praise for the BodyBugg

Since I began my laser focus on fat loss about 2 weeks ago, I've been in control of my appetite for the most part. Yesterday was the first day where I just felt like I needed to eat more. It wasn't that I ate bad things, or that I ate when I wasn't hungry, but I did eat nearly 2400 calories. This is almost 1000 more than I usually eat. This increased caloric intake coupled with a rest day, as Saturday is usually my rest day, left me with only 171 calories for a deficit.

While a 171 calorie deficit won't get me anywhere very fast, it is still something. The value of having this information is the difference between feeling like a failure and feeling OK. I believe that, for me, a key factor contributing toward my ability to succeed will be the banishment of negativity and feelings of failure that ultimately have caused me to give up in the past. The BodyBugg teaches you that dieting and exercise are not an all or nothing practice.

While our weight loss goals are typically associated with dates (more like deadlines), the truth is that we have the rest of our lives to lose weight and be healthy. As long as we are going in the right direction, we WILL get there.

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Diet and Training Plans Updated

So the more I read about the Eat-Clean Diet and fundamentals of exercise, the more tweaks I make to my current plan. I thought I'd take a moment to post my current plan for diet, exercise and supplementation.

My exercise week goes from Sunday to Thursday. This past week I took a few unplanned rest days due to being sick, but I really hope to train hard and focus straight on into Friday.

Training Plan Week 3

• Cardio - 1 hr Treadmill Intervals (walk 2 min/run 2 min including 5 min warm-up and 10 min cool down) x 5 days
• Strength - Total Body w/ Weights on Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday. Abs on Monday, Wednesday & Friday
• Rest Day - Saturday is rest day, but will try to stay active.

Sample Menu

• Breakfast - Protein Shake w/ Fruit, Flax Seed, Wheat Germ
• AM Snack - 1/4 cup Ezekiel Cereal & 1 tbls dried fruit made with 1 scoop 100% whey protein (vanilla) and 3 drops Stevia sweetener
• Lunch - Grilled Chicken Breast w/ Baby Spinach, Fresh Veggies & Goat Cheese (I have been using light ranch because I love it so much, but looking for a way to make my own "clean" Ranch"
• PM Snack - Grilled Chicken Breast w/ Steamed Veggies & 1/2 cup brown rice
• Dinner - something wonderful from the Eat-Clean Diet cookbooks
• Late Snack (post workout) - usually another protein shake, but different ingredients

Supplements

• Glucosamine/MSM
• Maca Root
• CoQ10
• Multivitamin
• CLA

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Big Changes in Less Than 2 Weeks

I'm heading into the 5th day of my second week of eating clean and training hard. I've noticed some remarkable changes thus far.

Feeling Slimmer - Don't get me wrong. I'm still far from a healthy weight, but there is no doubt in my mind that my body fat is melting away. Regardless of what the scale says at next weigh in, I am taking up less room and feeling slightly better in my clothes, enough to where I feel some relief.

Unbelievable Improvement in Core Strength - I've been working especially hard on this since the baby has left me with very loose abdominal muscles. Just 2 weeks ago, I would contract them and barely even feel that I was doing anything. I've added an abdominal routine that includes this amazing Tae Bo Abs video 3 times a week. Check It Out It's under 30 mins and works the abs several different ways. I always have trouble getting abs done at the gym because I'm self conscious. Another major contributor to the fast results here is the fact that I am concentrating on abs during my cardio sessions. When I'm running on the treadmill, I visualize my abs assisting with the pulling of my legs. When I focus this way, I also seem to be able to run faster with little additional effort.

Sense of Control and Inner Peace - I believe this comes from true commitment. I'm not battling with myself in a constant balance between small victories and devastating failures. I've been teetering on making big changes for a long time now. I can't place my finger on what has changed that finally pushed me over into that place, but now that I'm here, I have an enormous since of peace and focus. I have a lot more thought process to devote toward anything and everything other than self-loathing, guilt and what I'm going to do about my health and weight problem. It feels incredible.

Less Desire to Drink - This is huge for me. I carry around an unhealthy amount of anxiety and would self medicate by having beer or wine in the evenings. Going into this clean eating lifestyle, I had decided to make an allowance for some drinking. The first week I had decided to allow myself 4oz of red wine in the evenings if I wanted it. The truth is, between self medicating my anxiety problem and being in a family that drinks for any reason, I really felt like it was too important to my lifestyle to give it up. What I found initially is that I didn't need that 4 oz of red wine during the week. My gym trips replaced the need to self medicate in the evenings. I decided I would allow myself to drink on the weekends. At first this was welcomed, but then the next day I wouldn't feel as good or have as much energy, and for the first time in my life, my health and energy seemed to be more important than that glass of wine or beer. I still enjoy having a little "buzz", but I feel very uncomfortable with much more than that. This is unexpected and nothing short of a miracle.

On another note, I found this cool article on the homepage of MSN.com this morning. Change Your Life in 31 Days It's bascially about small changes adding up big. I thought it was inspiring.

Enjoy the weekend!

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It's Pizza Night!

The family is doing OK on the clean eating plan, but because I'm a newbie, our dinners have been rather bland lately. When I'm in a hurry, I'll just make chicken with brown rice and veggies, which is really tasty, but gets old after a few days. I made the Adobe Rubbed Pork with Pico from the Eat-Clean Cookbook by Tosca Reno last night. It was a huge it. Other than that, most of what I've made has been delicious to me, but not thrilling to the family. I made the choice to eat clean, but they were sort of forced into it. So... I actually found a wonderful recipe for a clean pizza. I made this early last week and everyone loved it so much, they asked if we can have a pizza night. I am happy to oblige.

Clean-Eating Whole Wheat Pizza

Crust - credited to 'Matnerd' on the Men's Health Magazine Forum

1 cup skim milk (scaled)

`1 cup water

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp sucanat sugar

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 pkg dry yeast (1 tbsp)

3 cups Whole Wheat Flour

1. Heat milk to almost boiling. Then add the water, oil, sugar and salt. Set aside.
2. In another large bowl (for mixer or bread machine), add 1/4 cup very warm water (105 to 115 degrees) and 1 tbsp active dry yeast. Add to the milk mixture. Milk mixture should be warm, but not too hot. If too hot, the yeast will die.
3. Stir in 3 cups of Whole Wheat Flour
4. Once thoroughly mixed, add additional flour and knead to the point that the dough is smooth, elastic and not sticky (i.e., when you take your hands off of the dough, pieces of dough should stick to your hands).
5. Put the dough in a bowl that is lightly coated with oil, cover with a damp towel and place in a warm location to proof (Matnerd's suggestion is to heat the oven to 150 degrees, turn it off and then place the bowl in the oven). "Proofing" the dough, essentially, means allow it to rise. Once the dough is double it's original size, it's ready for use (about an hour).
6. Dough is ready for use. :-)

Toppings:

extra-lean ground turkey (seasoned with 1/2 tsp Italian spice blend), 1/2 cup mushrooms, veggies, onions, reduced fat mozzarella cheese, whatever you want...

Bake in pre-heated oven set to 425 degrees for 12 - 14 minutes.

I used a canned pizza sauce option last time, which was pretty clean, but I may try to make my own tonight.

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To Health and Happiness

So I posted my "before" pics yesterday, and in true "before" pic fashion, I made sure I had zero makeup on and looked about as frumpy as I could possible look. Ok..who am I kidding? That was me on my way out to the gym looking no worse than I always look. I guess it's just hard to really accept that this person is me. I don't feel that fat. I see the size 14's and 16's staring me in the face, and yet I feel like a 12. I can't really tell if this is good or bad, but one thing is certain. No matter how fat I look in real life, because I've committed to making this change, tomorrow I will be a little smaller and healthier.

I wanted to take a little walk down memory lane and check out some "skinny" pics. This is me just shy of 2 years ago. The reason this picture stands out to me isn't because I look thin, although I was pretty thin. It's because I look healthy and happy. I've spent the last year and half thinking about why I was putting on weight, and all the while, I was putting on more and more weight by turning to food to console myself for putting on weight. How sick is that? So in the spirit of health and happiness, I've done some evaluating of my current goal of losing 3 lbs per week. While I'm able to manage the caloric deficit require for a 3lb loss per week (on paper that is), I think eating 1250 cals per day isn't enough when my BodyBugg says I'm burning up to 3700 on some days. I just don't feel good. So it is with complete commitment to my health, and total surrender of my vanity, that I actually make a choice to lose weight more slowly in the interest of being healthy.

Now with some of that pressure gone, and a little more wiggle room in my diet, I'm going to eat enough for dinner tonight in order to actually feel strong during my 45 min jog on the treadmill tonight. :-)

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Under the Weather

Part of the problem with being so fanatical about exercising in the beginning is pushing too hard when your body is telling you to rest. I've worked out with a cold for the last few days, but I am totally wiped out today. I've decided to skip the gym tonight and maybe make it up over the weekend when I have a scheduled "off" day. I know that by going to bed early tonight and not working out, I'll burn less calories on my bodybugg, but if I don't rest, I could potentially be out tomorrow as well. Bleh...

I've decided to have a Sugarfree Redbull (not a "clean" choice) and Motrin cocktail and do some chores for activity before my husband gets home from work. I bought some Clif Luna bars at the store today to eat as late night post workout snacks, but they are tempting me like a candy bar would. I think this is only because I'm sick and off my game. I have been meaning to make some "clean" protein bars from the Eat-Clean Cookbook, but I haven't gotten to it. This may be a sign that I'm not ready to have things like sweet tasting bars in the house. Maybe I'll give them to the kids and hubby and stick to the healthier homemade protein shakes for post workout energy.

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BodyBugg - Eye Opening Lessons Learned So Far

Yesterday marked the end of my first official week using the BodyBugg Calorie Management System. I'm please to say that this tool is teaching me more than I ever could have hoped. The main reason I got it was to try and change my all or nothing attitude when it comes to diet and exercise. I can honestly say that after just 1 week, I have learned an enormous amount of information about activity and caloric burn.

I think it is important to note that calorie counting is NOT part of the Clean Eating way of life, but because of my extremely screwed up ideas upon which I've based my various eating disorders over the past 15 years, I felt that I needed to look at things in an entirely new way. Before BodyBugg was marketed through 24 hour fitness, it was called something else. This technology has been used as behavioral therapy for obese (or just overweight) patients that need to make a change to their lifestyle. I read all about this at bodymedia.com, the company that manufactures the product.

These are my activity graphs for the past week. You can see how my activity spikes on my gym nights. The overall pattern here shows me waking up briefly in the middle of the night to feed my daughter (still eating every 3 hours...), and then waking for the day around 7am. The total caloric burn ranges from 2291 - 3770.

Ironically, the days with my highest caloric burn were NOT days that I trained very hard at the gym. These high burning days were days that I did a lot of running around and housework. Eureka! I mean come on! This is huge! You mean if I move more throughout the day, I can burn as much or more as being sedentary all day and then running on the treadmill later in the evening for 45 minutes?!? This is truly eye opening. I mean it makes sense, but it's so helpful to be able to quantify these things. Here's a list of the top lessons learned thus far after using BodyBugg 1 week.

1. An active day running around cleaning, running around and generally not sitting in front of the computer all day (like doing this blog entry) have a greater impact to my caloric burn rate than whether I went to the gym that day.
2. Being even just a little more active really adds up. For example, if you burn 1.3 cals/min at rest, you would burn about 1872 cals per day. If you just move even a little more when you can and boost that burn to just .5 more cals/min, you would burn a total of 2592. What a huge difference!
3. Sleep really does matter. The day that I burned only 2291 (nearly 500 less than my daily target), I took a 3 hour nap during the middle of the day to catch up from a week of sleep deprivation. I was also a couch potato all day from simply being pooped. On days that I am well rested, I burn WAY more calories the next day. I'm just naturally more active on those days.
4. My biggest activity zappers are Internet surfing and infant feeding. Since my baby is only 7 weeks old now, I spend nearly 6 hours a day feeding her. Web surfing/blogging are also zappers. I spend an enormous amount of time on the computer between working, although I'm still on maternity leave at the moment, and just surfing/blogging in general. I'm considering getting one of those under desk pedal things. I work from home, so I don't have to be embarrassed about it. My mom said she knows someone at work that uses one. She said the lady is very thin. Maybe she knows something we are just now figuring out! Here's an example of one I might get. Amazon seems to have a ton to choose from. Isokinetics Executive Deluxe Pedal Exerciser - Chrome
5. Intervals are awesome. I'm too heavy to run for 45 minutes without injuring myself, however if I run/walk at 2 minutes intervals, I burn nearly the same calories and don't injure myself.

Overall this BodyBugg tool has been amazing. I am in no way affiliated with BodyBugg, so I have no reason to endorse it other than the fact that it is just awesome! I think the cheapest place to buy one right now is the 24 hours fitness website (www.24hourfitness.com). I would check Ebay too.

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Weigh-In Day-Week 1 (Nervous)

I'm incredibly nervous this morning. I've been eating clean and averaging a 1500 calorie deficit each day, but still I fear the scale will take the wind out of my sails. In order to meet my goal, the scale needs to read 199. I really need to discuss a few things before I weigh-in. In the past, the scale has had the power to ruin my mood and perfectly good diets. I'm trying to really grasp a few things so that no matter what, I feel strong and positive no matter what the scale says.

Why this week is a success no matter what...

• I started at the gym
• I ate clean all week and cooked healthy meals for my family.
• I drank only 10% of the alcoholic beverages I would have had I not been trying
• I did weight lifting this week, so it is possible that gained muscle could cancel out weight loss on the scale.
• My skin feels better.
• My cravings for sweets have disappeared for the most part.
• My mom and husband say they notice a change in my physical appearance, primarily the area I like to call "back fat"
• A buddy of mine on the SparkPeople.com community site adopted this lifestyle and didn't notice big deal changes for about 2 months, after which time she said she couldn't stop the changes. Right now I'm building a strong body under fat. It will take a while to reveal the hard work put in at the gym.

OK...so I'm about to go do the deed. I honestly feel sick. Drumroll please....

199.8. I feel ok about this. It's not the 3 lbs I was shooting for, but 2.2 is something. I've also been lifting, so I may have lost more body fat and gained muscle. Phew!..I made it past the weigh-in. I was not looking forward to that.

Honestly, I'm pleased. I think this 2.2 loss is body fat and I probably gained a little muscle, which is the ultimate goal no matter what the numbers say.

Wish me luck for week 2!

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Sick of Sweats

I suppose I could wear something else, but nothing really fits right. I'm wearing size 16 GAP jeans (and some 14's), but the button won't snap in any size. It's hard to say just how much of my tummy is remaining preggo pooch, but honestly, who cares...

I'll officially end week 1 tomorrow and hope to meet my 3lb goal for the week, but even at 3 lbs per week, it will be months before I feel OK in regular clothes. It's times like these when you have to take deep breaths and keep your eye on the prize. I know that sticking with the plan is the only way to reclaim my life and body, but it's difficult when you start each and every day trying on cloths that are too tight and resorting to sweatpants. These feelings of desperation and self-loathing begin first thing in the morning, but now there is no consoling myself with food. It's this self-loathing/emotional eating cycle that got me here in the first place. I've found a few things to think about when the thought crosses my mind to give up.

• If it takes me 6 months to a year, so what! I will either be fat or skinny at the end of this time, and one thing is for sure, the time will pass.
• This is a lifestyle change and not a diet. If I continue to do so well, my body will have no choice but to respond.
• I'm happy and enjoying life now. I'm not waiting to be thinner to start living.
• Each pound is like 4 sticks of butter. I would do just about anything to get 4 sticks of butter off my body, even if I really need to drop 280 sticks of butter.

To everyone reading this wearing sweatpants or jeans that are too uncomfortable to bend over in, take a deep breath and keep your eye on the prize. You could be 4 - 12 sticks of butter shy by the end of this week!

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Month 1 Clean Eating Plan

1. I've read a few different definitions explaining exactly what clean eating is all about. To me, the term "eating clean" has come to mean the following:
   

• Only "whole foods" should be eaten. Organic foods are used when possible.
• No refined sugar or artificial sweeteners
• No beer or liquor, wine is ok occasionally
• Diet should include an adequate amount of protein with each meal, coupled with complex carbs.
• Water should be had throughout the day; 1 oz per pound of body weight.
• Meals should be eaten every few hours to keep the metabolic furnace hard at work.

I'm sure I have left some small things out, but these are the basic principles as I understand them. I've put a link to a wonderful Clean Eating book by Tosca Reno over on the right. This is the lifestyle followed by bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts. I believe that this way of life will help me to think differently about food.

To the left is a sample of my menu. I'm eating the sames things for many of the meals each day, but cooking clean eating recipes for the family for dinners. The family is less than thrilled about our super healthy dinners, but the are adjusting. I'm trying new recipes each day, so they are learning with me. I actually enjoy the cooking! Who knew!?! I'm going to start an area on this blog that lists my favorite recipes. If this is going to be a true lifestyle for me, my family has to adopt it as well.

I started by totally purging the house of all things "unclean". I started doing it in order to save me from myself, in case I want to fall off the wagon, and so far it has saved me countless times. When I go into the fridge looking for a treat, I am forced to be creative and actually make food. It really takes away the ability to eat mindlessly. There are a few pitfalls I've run into.

1. Alcohol - Honestly, I have a drink almost every day. I know this isn't good, but it's sort of my family's culture. Sometimes we just have a beer after work or a glass of wine, but family gatherings can include alcohol in abundance. You will see from my plan that I have allowed myself 4 - 6oz of red wine at night before bed if I want it. Today was the first day that I didn't want it. This is huge for me. I don't know if it's because my body is banishing cravings or what, but I actually am allowing myself to have it if I want it, even though it's not really allowed. I will say that on the days I've had more wine, I've eaten more. There is a line that can't be crossed with the wine. Anything over 6 oz and I've lost some of my willpower. Thankfully, because my house has only clean foods in it, I eat the clean stuff during my "munchies".
2. Artificial sweeteners - I like my Splenda, which is really not allowed. I have been using it anyway until I can buy some Stevia. My mom has Stevia and it's actually pretty good.
3. Coffee - While the author of the book enjoys coffee, I don't think caffeine is really good on the plan. I'm not ready to give it up either.
4. Bloating and Gassiness - So far the clean eating has left me feeling bloated and gassy. From what I understand, this will pass as my body adjusts to ingesting all these veggies and protein.

I've decided that I'll deal with this things as I can and not put a lot of pressure on myself to resolve them right away. After 1 week of clean eating, I have enjoyed the following positive things:

1. My skin has improved already.
2. My energy level is up.
3. My head is clear.
4. I'm getting an enormous amount of satisfaction from cooking for my family.
5. I get an almost "buzz" off of some of the meals. It's really quite amazing.

I'll be sure to post more observations and I see them. So far, this really seems like a way of life that I can handle. I feel I have no choice but do to this for my health and that of my family.

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Month 1 Workout Plan

I've decided I'm just not ready for a trainer. I know it's silly, but I feel like I have to lose some weight before I can feel good about having someone scrutinize my fitness level. I've done a little research and feel that I have enough information to be successful and focused for the first 4 weeks. This is what I've learned.

1. You can lose more weight doing interval training that straight cardio. Basically, interval training involves doing 2 - 5 minutes of exercise at 80 - 90% max heart rate, followed by an equal amount of exercise done around 60%, alternating between the two.
2. Strength training is absolutely needed in order to build the body of my dreams. Building muscles will not only make you look your best, but they will also burn more calories at rest. If you burned just .5 more calories per minute, that would be an extra 700 calories per day doing nothing more than just existing.
3. Your body will try to adapt to your workout routine, so you have to mix it up every once in a while so that you are always challenged.

I've designed month 1 based on these ideas. Here's a breakdown by day:

• sunday- 45 cardio (intervals)/arms + abs
• monday- 45 cardio (intervals)/shoulders + back
• tuesday- 45 cardio (intervals)/chest + abs
• wednesday- 45 cardio (intervals)/legs
• thursday- 45 cardio (intervals)/abs
• friday- rest
• saturday- rest

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Week 1 - Setting a 12 Week Weight Loss Goal

The BodyBugg system asks you to set a short term, 12 week goal. When you first get the system, you go through a series of tutorials that help you figure out the amount of calories you should be taking in, as well as the amount you should be burning per day to hit your goal.

While they suggest a loss of 2lbs per week, I'm shooting for 3. This means I'll need to have a 1500 calorie deficit each day. Over time, my progress will be charted on this page on the BodyBugg software. My first weigh in day in on Tuesday, 1/20. I need to weigh in at 199 to be on track. Bleh... 199 seems so horrible, but I have to think of it in terms of weekly goals and not look at the actual number. Sometime it helps to think of the fact that each pound of fat would look sort of like a package of 4 butter sticks. When I think of being 12 butter sticks smaller, that makes me feel pretty good.

If I actually stay on track, I will weigh in at 166 lbs on 4/7. I'm actually not that terrible looking at 166lbs. I will feel ok about "being with" my husband and not worrying too much about how grossed out he must be. After 12 weeks, I'll set a new goal, which is likely to be another 3lbs per week if it goes well.

This is a snap shot of my Thursday. You can see how it sort of plots out the calories burned over the course of the day. You have to go in and enter your food eaten for each meal. I try to plan ahead and enter in all at once. You can see here that I burned 3209 cals and consumed only 1695, creating the needed 1500 deficit to stay on track. We'll see how this well this works when weigh in day comes. The BodyBugg has really helped in 2 ways so far. It really helps me be more mindful of what I'm putting in my mouth, and it also helps by showing the caloric burn rate for normal things you do anyway. For example, I burned nearly 500 more calories on the day that I did a lot of house work and walking up and down the stairs to put laundry away one day. On most days I've been showing around an 1800 calorie deficit. Not too shabby! The real challenge is not drinking....

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Week 1 - Starting the Gym

Like a billion other people, I purchased my gym membership during a "New Year's Resolution" promotion. It isn't that I have a resolution to lose weight, in fact, it goes way beyond that. I have resolved myself to transforming my body inside and out. The timing just happened to coincide with the new year.

The real challenge I face right now is time and child care. I'm still on maternity leave. I have 3 kids; 9, 3, and 6 weeks. I'm getting about 5 hours of sleep at night at this point, and my entire day is devoted to taking care of one child or another. Honestly, I'm totally stressed. My time is not my own. The only possible time to exercise at the gym would be from about 10pm to 12am. Not great for my sleep problem, but I've done this several times now and feel good about it. It's nice to get a few hours to myself. Things at my house are totally crazy from 6am to 10pm.

So I bought my gym membership thinking I would start immediately, but it actually took me about a week before I got the guts to go. I was nervous about going somewhere new. I wasn't too sure of the crowd that would be there. I also didn't know where the locker room was and how busy it would be, etc. I was worried about looking like a whale in my workout clothes as well. Here's a brief summary of what I learned my first week at the gym...

1. I am WAY more out of shape that I originally thought.

2. Gym mirrors are very unforgiving. I've learned where in the gym to avoid looking.

3. Despite being 200lbs, I can actually run at 2 minute intervals and my joints feel ok.

4. I burn more calories and have a better workout if I plan ahead.

5. Lastly, eating clean causes gasiness at first, so if you accidentaly, um..you know, while working out, just pretend it didn't happen and keep going....

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Week 1 - Let's Get Real

So here I am tipping this scales at just over 200lbs. I never thought I would see the day, but here I am and it's time to face the facts. I delivered my 3rd (and last) child exactly 6 weeks ago today. I thought surely by now I would be somewhere around 180, but the harsh reality is that I've lost only 6lbs from the day I delivered to now.

Over these last 6 weeks, I've gone back and forth on which approach to take with this weight loss. I've gained and lost a million pounds over my 29 years. I've done it every different way you can imagine, but the most successful way for me has been starvation. That worked really well when I had about 30 lbs to lose, but I have 78 lbs to lose now and I'm totally out of shape. About 2 weeks after having the baby, I stopped eating in hopes of dropping a quick 20 lbs by now, but it isn't working and it's not doing my healing body any favors. So...

This time I'm doing it right! We're talking workouts, vegetables, vitamins, the whole enchilada! This probably sounds pretty silly. I mean, why wouldn't I do it right, right? Well, this is actually a very big deal because I feel desperate. I feel awful NOW and I want relief NOW. In fact, I have a date with my husband that we have been planning for a LONG time in about 2 weeks, and honestly, working out and eating well won't help me to feel more comfortable in 2 weeks. I'm probably not going to feel more comfortable for several months. When feeling fat, every minute of every day feeling fat is miserable. So miserable, in fact, that it causes compulsive behavior, like buying diet pills at the grocery store when you know they aren't going to work, or vowing to stop eating until you get "skinny". Ultimately, for me desperation leads to more bad eating. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being out of control and tired of spending 90% of my thought process on self loathing and thoughts about my body. I'm done.

I've done a lot of research and have decided to tackle this problem 3 ways.

#1 - 24Hour Fitness - I've got to get strong and burn more calories. Sitting on my butt at home (doing blog entries ;-)) is making me fat!

#2 - BodyBugg Calorie Management System - I found out about this through my gym. Basically you wear a device that helps you figure out how many calories you burn throughout the day. It's not a heart rate monitor, but an actual gizmo that measures your metabolic rate based on 4 factors. If you haven't heard about this thing, you must check out their website. I've been using this for about a week now and love it.
(http://www.bodybugg.com/)

#3 - Clean Eating - This is the big one. I've committed to adopt a new way of eating for life. The way I've viewed food and nutrition in the past is totally messed up. I've spent my adult years going between eating nothing or eating too much. I don't know how to eat normally. I'm either losing or gaining weight. I cook for my family and then pop a Lean Cuisine in the microwave for myself instead of just making the correct portion of dinner for myself. I could lose weight on Lean Cuisines again, but if I don't learn to eat normally, I will be fighting this thing for the rest of my life. I'm ready to enjoy life again. I'm sick of the games. Clean Eating is simply eating food in it's natural form. There are a few rules, but they are really simple. This is the way bodybuilders and fitness competitors eat. I figure they know a little something about getting lean. For more info, check out http://eatcleandiet.com/.

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