Fatty 1 - Here we go again

So I’m back from my diet vacation.  I needed a little time off, so I took it.  When starting back up, I wasn’t really into it, but I was gaining weight steadily if slowly as my portion sizes crept back up, and the quality of nutrition went down.  So I wanted to do something easy to stick to, easy to think about, and so I went back to the tried and true: Weightwatchers.

I had lost 30 pounds with WW before, and have actually kept most of it off.  I then lost another 15 with Atkins, but that came back, so I pretty much am where I was when I ended WW, which was several years ago.  Some minor fluctuations since then, but nothing to big.

I had gotten fed up with WW because I had plateaued for two years.  I couldn’t lose more than five pounds without gaining it back.  I still had another 20 pounds to go, but I wasn’t getting there.  Knowing what I know now that I am a more educated in nutrition, I realized I must have slowed my metabolism down.

Since then I’ve learned more about nutrition and metabolism and exercise.  I started fairly intense weight training about 9 months ago.  I am speculating that this was the component missing when I plateaued on WW those years ago.  So I decided to return to it, and see if this new way of exercising makes a difference.

The idea being that the reduced calorie nature of the WW diet can lead to muscle loss as well as fat loss, which can lead to slowing metabolism, which can lead to really annoying plateaus, that then lead to frustration, which leads to eating pints of Haagen-Daaz by the case.

So I’m hoping that my weight training will help me maintain or minimize the muscle loss, while helping me burn calories, and make me look buff.  Watch out Dara Torres, I’m after your six pack abs!

I don’t have time to go to meetings, so I am doing the Weightwatchers Online thing.  A friend of mine is doing it too, so we can have our own little mini meetings.  I like the points tracker, not that I couldn’t do it myself on paper, but it makes it more fun.  Plus there is a recipe builder that lets you enter ingredients and then figures out the points for you.  That is gold.

So far it is going OK, only week two, but I’ve lost a little bit already.  I signed up for the 16 week plan on WW online, so I figure that will give me a set amount of time to work this system.  Not too long, and not too short.  I’m hoping to be 10 pounds lighter (or more of course) at the end of it, which seems doable to me.  That will put me about 17 pounds from my goal.

Fatty 1 - Glacial Melt

I haven’t posted for a while, for various reasons.  A:  I’m busy. B: I need a break from posting C: I don’t much to write about because I haven’t made progress, and I am uninspired to write.

It’s funny how these diet blogs start out with all sorts of enthusiasm, then as things slow down, as the always seem to do, the posting gets less frequent, and in a rapidly downward spiral slides the motivation.  Yes, the sucking sound you hear is motivation leaving the building, via the drain.

I actually like writing, and when I get started I generally don’t have too much trouble rambling on about something or other, as I am doing right now.  It’s the getting started that is hard.  I think, who wants to read the diet blog of someone who isn’t making any progress, and is going to “start again tomorrow - really.”

Here’s the thing though.  I have been making progress. Very zig-zaggy, erratic progress, but progress nonetheless.  When I started this blog in January, I weighed 175 pounds.  Now six months later I weigh 170-ish (averaged throughout the week).  I have lost 5 pounds in 6 months.  That’s only a pound a month, glacially slow, but it is progress.

I am also in better shape.  I can do one full-body push-up, sometimes two in a row on a good day, which I couldn’t do.  I can do probably 15 knee push-ups in a row without stopping.  I have increased my overall strength through weightlifting.  I have deadlifted 60kg/132lbs.  I have back-squatted 50kg/110lbs.

My pants are too tight now, but not in the waist, which has gotten about an inch smaller, but in the thighs and butt. Now some people don’t want a bigger butt and thighs, but I don’t mind since I know it is muscle, plus I’m a white girl with a flat butt, I need all the butt I can get.

So there is progress; it’s just not the lose 30 pounds in 30 days progress.  Maybe it’s not as exciting to write about, and maybe it’s not that exciting to read about.  I don’t know, but when I really stop and think about it, I actually do find it exciting.

Fatty 1 - What’s your number?

Numbers are important things, useful things.  Useful for counting things, adding things up, and subtracting some things from other things.  There are some special numbers, like pi, which is nice when you need to figure out the circumfrence/area of a circle.  There is 360 which is useful when you want to travel all the way back around to where you started.  Or conversely, there is 180 which is the doorway to the opposite perspective of whence you came.

Sometimes you want your numbers to be big, such as when you get your paycheck, or when you lift weights in the gym.  Sometimes you want them to be small, like the amount you owe on line 24B of your tax form, or if you are an Olympic sprinter, the seconds it takes you to run the 100 meters.

Then of course there is the scale.  Now if you are the 98 pound weakling on the back of the comic book, you want this number to be big. And if you are the pudgy middle-aged woman sitting at her boring desk job all day, you want it to be small. For instance the number 170 would be wonderful if you are the 98 pound weakling, and if you are the middle-aged woman, it mocks you from the LED screen on your scale.

Some numbers take on special meaning.  For instance my special number is 169.5.  That’s the first number my scale will read below 170, which is my current naked, first-thing-in-the-morning-after-I’ve-peed weight.  Why is 169.5 special?  Because I can’t seem to reach it.  I’ve bounced between 173 and 170 for two months.  The 169.5 had now become the promised land, the oasis in the desert, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I feel like if I can cross the border into the realm of the 160’s I will be able to move on, make progress, end the plateau.

170 - 169.5 = .5

Not a big number, or is it?

Fatty 1 - On vacation.

Well, I appear to be on bit of a diet break for the past week.  It’s not so much that I was drawn to eating bad foods by the seductive nature of the bad foods themselves.  It is more that I got tired of cooking healthy food, and tired of planning my days worth of food in advance, and packing up tomorrow’s breakfast,lunch, and snacks the night before.

Laziness got me, not food cravings.  The urge to lay around on the couch and have my food delivered to me in a box, sliced into pie shaped wedges, that could be eaten with little effort and no pots and pans to clean.  Or the enjoyment of going out, deciding right then and there, what you are in the mood for, and then having someone bring that too you.

I need to win the lottery so I can have a personal chef.  Someone who will shop and cook for me.  I’ll eat the healthy stuff.  Why even today I had a salad and vegetable soup for lunch.  My lunch was 90% vegetables and I ate them voluntarily.  Why? Because I could go down to the cafeteria at work and grab some tongs and throw some salad greens on my plate, and scoop a bowl of soup out of the pot.  Two minutes and I had a meal.

Unfortunately the cafeteria at my job isn’t always so healthy and appetizing as it was today.  Today, the vegetables actually looked to be the tastiest thing on the menu, so that’s what I ate.  Yesterday it was pizza for lunch, and then hamburgers on the way home.  Too often it is the unhealthy food that is the easiest to procure.

I know, whine, whine, whine.  I’ll get over it.

So, I’ve had my week off.  The weekend is coming and I will go and buy food for the week, and make my lunches in advance. I will be good and get back on my plan again.  I will look at the fact that I was good for 4 consecutive weeks, and not let my week off permanently derail me.  I will start again, and try to make it 5 consecutive weeks this time.

Fatty 1 - Dieting is hard.

Dieting is hard. Just thought I’d say that, in case you didn’t realize it. Really? What’s hard about it you say? Well, let’s see…umm…everything.

First, there is the fact that you can do all the “right” things and not lose weight. Then of course there is actually figuring out what the “right” things are, since no one can agree, and everyone’s body responds differently depending on their genetic and mental makeup anyway.

But really, that is just the first level. The really hard thing is that you have to eat stuff you don’t like. Like vegetables for instance, or strangely neon amino-acid drinks that you have purchased in the hopes it will do like the label says, and help you preserve your muscle mass while you lose weight, and speed up the fat burning process.

After opening the container of BCAA Boost from True Protein, I was confronted with and innocuous white powder, which sort of surprised me because it was Limeade flavor and I thought it might be green.

I need not have worried. Once the two scoops were mixed with water, it turned the obligatory neon green, not unlike a case of glowsticks broken open and bled for their glowing nectar.

It actually wouldn’t surprise me if that was one of the ingredients. That and can of leftover paint, a bottle or two of expired vitamins, and a packet of lime Kool-Aid (no sugar added). At least that’s what it tasted like.

I had to choke to get it down as I drove to my weightlifting class. Directions: consume 2 scoops in 20 - 36 ounces of water, 30-45 minutes before workouts preferably on an empty stomach. I understand the desire for an empty stomach, it is so you don’t hurl up the contents of said stomach in the process of trying to get this stuff down.

I did manage it. Sip by sip as I waited at traffic lights, talking to myself, telling myself not to be such a wimp, until I had half on my bottle down. This was an experiment after all, I don’t have to do it forever. Butch up, girlie. What do I want more, fat or flavor?

I did my workout, and I have to say I did have more energy, which undoubtedly was coming from the caffeine in the product. I drank the other half on the way home, as part of the recovery protocol.

The BCAA’s (Branch Chain Amino Acids) were recommended in the plan I am on for helping people who are on calorie restricted diets, and for those who are doing intense exercise (i.e. interval training and weight lifting), to help maintain muscle mass, in the attempt to minimize the metabolic slow down that often comes from dieting.

As you lose weight, you lose muscle mass, which reduces the amount of calories you burn and slows down your metabolism. This is often why people plateau after short period of time when they are dieting. Your body, thinking you are facing famine, slows everything down to try and keep you alive.

For some reason your body doesn’t seem to get when you explain to it, that no really, I’m not starving, there is plenty of food right over there on the corner at that McDonald’s. I could eat any time I want, really body, I’m just trying to get into this pair of skinny jeans that i haven’t worn since high school, you understand, right?

It doesn’t get it.

So, since I seemed to have hit a plateau, I thought, it doesn’t hurt to try it. So I’m going to give it two weeks and see if I see any results.

UPDATE: I have found that if you mix it with more water it is actually a lot more palatable. My first time I put two scoops in a 32 ounce bottle, which is all I had at the time.  This time I mixed one scoop in 20 ounces of water.

I had one 20 ounce bottle before working out this morning, and I do say I had more energy than Inormally do. Then I had my second bottle(scoop) afterwards. It still isn’t the tastiest thing, but at least I can get it down. I will let you know results in two weeks.

Fatty 1 - The long road

So the tedium has set in.  I am following my plan, and things scale seems to be going down, very slowly, but at least it is going down. Actually it goes down and then up and then down and then up, but it is in ever so small increments going down.

That’s good and all, and i am not complaining (Ok, maybe I am). I am on my third week eating healthy and exercising, and while I am still doing good, my enthusiasm is waning.  It’s like getting ready for a road trip vacation.  You are all excited.  You look at travel brochures, you plan your route.  You do all the work of planning what you are going to pack, and then packing it.

There is restless sleep the night before, and then excitement to be up and out hitting the road.  You drive out of the familiar surroundings; every thing looks new and exciting.  Then after a bit it’s less exciting, and then it’s like driving in the Nevada desert, which if you have ever done that you know what I mean.  It is driving through a whole lot of nothing but cactus after cactus and scrubby brown desert.

You think to yourself, how much longer until we get to Vegas?  Oh, it is so much longer. You can’t really stop though in the desert.  There is no point; there is nothing there.

Unfortunately, in Dietland there are all sorts of things to lure you off the main road, down the dusty lane to that creepy small village where something bad then happens, like in the movies.

So how do you entertain yourself on the long drive?  I guess first of all you need to realize that you need to entertain yourself.  Yes, I am responsible for my own entertainment.  There is a song (which of course I can’t remember) that has a line that says “if you’re bored, then your boring.”  I always took that to mean if you are bored it means you weren’t creative enough to find something to do with yourself.

So I am going to try and entertain myself, distract myself from the tedium of the everyday. I have my eye on this book called The Art of Possibility.  I like to read a good motivational book now and again for inspiration.

A bit on the book from from the Amazon website

The lure of this book’s promise starts with the assumption in its title. Possibility–that big, all-encompassing, wide-open-door concept–is an art? Well, who doesn’t want to be a skilled artist, whether in the director’s chair, the boardroom, on the factory floor, or even just in dealing with life’s everyday situations? Becoming an artist, however, requires discipline, and what the authors of The Art of Possibility offer is a set of practices designed to “initiate a new approach to current conditions, based on uncommon assumptions about the nature of the world.”

If that sounds a little too airy-fairy for you, don’t be put off; this is no mere self-improvement book, with a wimpy mandate to transform its readers into “nicer” people. Instead, it’s a collection of illustrations and advice that suggests a way to change your entire outlook on life and, in the process, open up a new realm of possibility.

What intrigues me about the book is that it is supposed to talk about how our perceptions and assumptions (often incorrect) tend to limit what we can actually do. I have seen this in my own life, and I would like to find work-arounds for this, which this book is supposed to offer.

I’ll let you know what I think.

Fatty 1 - Tortoise vs. Hare

So on the good news front I have drifted back down to 170.5.  This makes me feel better.  I have started graphing my daily weight fluctuations to see if there is a pattern.  You know, up at certain times of the month, etc.  More out of curiosity than obsession.  I like to think.

The shoulder is getting better.  It makes working out harder, but I have been going to both my Crossfit class and Aikido.  I modify the weightlifting to things I can do.  For instance I can’t lift over my head, but I can lift things up from the floor, and I can interestingly do push-ups.  So I have been doing a lot of push-ups and deadlifts, and squats.  My legs are going to be steel by the time my shoulder gets better.

I’ve also been doing overhead dumbbell stuff with the good arm.  Unfortunately my good arm is my dominant arm which is already stronger.  Too bad I’m not forced to use my left arm, then I could even up.  I use a lighter weight on the right arm, so I don’t build it up to much until the left arm can catch up.  Mostly it’s to give me a break with the leg work.

The food front is going OK. I have managed to maintain 90% compliance with my dietary goals for two and a half weeks now.  That must be some sort of record.  I don’t like being hardcore.  Not with anything really.  I’ve never been a binge eater, and I’ve never been a diet nazi.  I just sort of graze my way through the middle ground.  I am moderately good when I am good, and I am moderately bad when I am bad.

Sometimes I envy those who can go to the extremes, although I know it generally doesn’t work in the long run for them.  I have a fantasy of being like that and then when I reach my goal, I can go back to being my moderate self.  Still that’s not how I operate.  I am the tortoise and not the hare. I want to be a hare-tortoise (haretoise?).

Anyway, this is the closest I’ve come to being hardcore, and it has taken an extreme amount of work.  I’m glad I’m on break from school, because i am not quite sure how I am going to swing this all when I start up the new quarter.

I’ve committed myself to making my friends lunches, so that I am forced to cook for them, and therefore myself. It makes me accountable, but it does take a lot of time. I like cooking, so I don’t mind that part, but I also like sitting on the couch being a potato, and I’ve pretty much had to give that up.  I haven’t watched hardly any TV in the last two and half weeks either.  I have the entire Season 3 of Battlestar Galactic to watch on DVD, and I haven’t gotten around to it yet.  If you knew me, you’d know how unusual that is.

Anyway I am trying for the 5 weeks of compliance my plan recommends, then I shall evaluate my progress, and see what to do from there.  Probably not take a nap though, that’s for hares.

Fatty 1 - Plateau

So I have been two weeks on my eating plan. Actually it’s been two months, but the last two weeks, I have really made the attempt to follow it. I was feeling like I was making progress. Every morning I would weigh myself, and overall it seems to be going down. Very slowly, but going down.

That is until this morning, which is my “official” weigh-in day. I started my chart off on Monday so my Monday weigh-ins I use as my marker of progress. I spent the week hovering between 170 and 171, until weigh-in day and I jumped to 173. I am glad I have been weighing myself everyday, because if I had just weighed myself last Monday (171.5) and this Monday, I would have been really depressed.

Of course, I could say it’s all that muscle I must be putting on from my weightlifting, but it is as hard to put muscle on as it is to get fat off. I am going to blame it on water retention or something, and weigh myself tomorrow. I’ve been peeing a lot today, so here’s keeping my fingers crossed.

There is also something I’ve noticed about breaking the 5 pound increment barriers. Getting to the other side of 170 has been very hard. I had the scale drop to 169.5 one day a few weeks ago. That was when I had the flu and couldn’t taste anything. But since then 170 is as low as I’ve gone.

I’ve had this happen before, where it won’t drop, it won’t drop, then finally bam! it drops below and it’s an easy ride to the next 5 pound line. Then the plateau for a long while. It never seems to plateau on the way up. Just a steady climb and next thing you know it’s twenty pounds. Not fair I say.

My diet plan says to try out their base plan for 5 weeks before you try and modify it. I have finished two weeks. I better be below 170 at the end of the next three weeks. I’m not eating all this vegetable for nothing.

Fatty 1 - Swing, Ouch! Sister.

My goal this week is to reach 90% compliance on my diet plan. I am following the Precision Nutrition guidelines for fat loss. There are 10, but the main ones are:

1. Eat every 3 hours
2. Eat a lean protein and vegetable/fruit with every meal
3. Only eat your starchy carbs (rice, bread, pasta, potatoes) after your workout
4. Workout 5 hours a week.

Now this diet only requires you to do those things 90% of the time. You don’t have to be 100%. The idea being the difference in the results you get from being 100% perfect and 90% compliant is negligible, so you might as cut yourself some slack.

My problem is that I cut too much slack. The last week and a half I was about 60% compliant. When I was sick and couldn’t taste food, I was 90% compliant (except for working out - I was sick). During that time I was eating 90% compliant I lost 4 pounds in two weeks. Not too shabby. Mostly water I bet, but I’ll still take it.

But the last week and a half I gained 3 of it back because I wasn’t eating as well. Not that I was eating really horribly, but not where I wanted to be. I wasn’t adequately prepared and kept running out of my food. Then of course I was forced to eat pizza and the like because that was what was around.

So my goal for this current week was to be back at 90% for the week, with my taste buds intact and able to taste every vegetable that passes by. So far I have been able to do it.

My strategies have been to make my girlfriend her lunch, and her relying on that has made me accountable, forcing me to stop whining about how I’m tired and don’t want to do it. And now I am making lunch for another friend as well.

My girlfriend Fatty 22 and our friend Fatty 3 have just started Challenge Bootcamp. They have been getting up every morning at 5 am, to workout in the dark and cold (and often damp) Seattle mornings. Running around, doing push-ups and squats, and running around some more.

So now the three of us are getting up at 5 am to go workout. I already had been getting up to go to Crossfit before work. In fac,t Tuesday morning, I got up to workout as usual. My wrist had been hurting, so I figured I’d probably have to modify my workout. I have some tendinitis in my right wrist from too much computering, and it flares up on occasion making it hard to grab things turn my hand.

So I get to Crossfit and what do we start off with. Overheard squats. That kills my wrist on the best of days, so I just did regular squats. The workout of the day was

4 sets for time of
8 back squats (I did them with 35kg/77lbs)
25 push-ups
300 meter row.

Now I couldn’t do the push-ups because my wrist hurt, so I offered to trade for kettlebell swings, thinking that will keep my wrist straight and I’ll be good to go. And I was. Until about the third set when, and I’m not sure exactly what happened but this is my best guess, I got tired, and let my shoulder go slack on the downward part of the swing. I felt a funny little “sproing” in my left shoulder. I thought, hmmmm, that will probably be a little sore later, but kept going. It didn’t hurt…yet.

I did all four sets and felt fine. Tired, wiped out, but fine. Until the drive home after I had cooled off a bit. I went to raise my left arm to turn on the turn signal only to find that it didn’t want to do that. And it let me know it didn’t want to do that by starting to throb ferociously. Apparently my little sproing was more serious than I thought.

I’ve hurt both my shoulders many times before, by landing on them in Aikido, so I am (unfortunately) familiar with this. I think I tore by biceps tendon a bit. I’ll probably be unable to lift weights for at least a week, maybe two, and Aikido will be limited as well for a while.

Just when I start to get into the groove. I tell you it’s annoying. This is the fifth time I start to feel like I am making progress, when something comes along and kicks me back. First time, surgery, second time bad cold, then another surgery, then the flu, then another cold, and now a shoulder injury.

Well, at least I am eating right.

Fatty 1 - Snack Pyramid

So I made it half way through the weekend before I basically fell apart with my eating plan. Not so much what I ate, but I ran out of prepared food. I need to make more meals on the weekend. I ran out of time last weekend and I was tired, so I thought, oh I make some stuff during the week.

I didn’t really think that through. I had class, Tues and Wednesday night, so there was no time there. I didn’t get home until late both nights, and I was really tired. So I didn’t have anything to bring to work on Thursday, and of course, I didn’t eat as well as I could have. Not that I was as horrible as I might have been, but just not really where I wanted.

On the up side, I didn’t partake of the immense amount of junk food that has appeared in my office of late. I blame the two new people, with their candy jars, and tubs of factory second broken chocolate covered graham crackers. I think I had mentioned how I put the TUB of broken grahams on the water cooler. Well I came to work yesterday and piled up on top of the water cooler, was a growing pyramid of Giza-esque proportions.  On top of the tub was a box of chocolate covered fruit gels, and a box of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies.

Then I go across the hall, and Candy Jar Girl has not only refilled her candy jar, but has placed next to it a TUB of chocolate covered peppermint patties. OK, people! There is plenty of junk food around, no more already!

So, again on the good note, I didn’t eat any of that. I just didn’t make my goal of getting through the week compliant with my diet plan. I’m not beating myself up about it. There is always next week.