One Week In

[thepnutgallery]

The exercise portion of my planamagig is going well-ish. I say "well-ish", not just because it sounds like "relish", but also because I seem to be getting that inflated look that some guys have. I have a theory about this, but we'll get to that in Part 2: Diet, or lack thereof. I'm now doing 8 sets per day, because I forgot my original goal on day 2 (that would be the day after I made the goal to begin with. Shut up.) and 8 sounded like a nice even number. Weekend workouts are surprisingly easy to get motivated for, when your wonderful, i-tune downloading husband buys "Very" by Moby for you. Granted, he might not want to listen to it 8 times a day, but he wasn't using his sanity anyway. If you don't know the song, come take the 7pm Wednesday Jazz class with me at Academy of Performing Arts (www.apastudios.com). It's awesome. Even better are the morning swims with the Bunny, which I could not, for several reasons, complete alone. Even better than that is that we've expanded into weekend swims, so we can swim for longer.
Part 2: Diet- In which I fail at even the seemingly simple goal of "Don't Eat Everything in Sight". I think this is why I'm getting that puffed look. I'm building muscle, which adds mass, and eating everything, which adds fat on top of the muscle. Building muscle helps your RMR, and aerobic exercise burns calories, but exercise, like Velma Kelly, simply cannot do it alone, especially if you're going for a svelte look. I try to eat regular amounts, regularly, but I always misjudge. Either my amount or my timing gets off, and then the next time I eat, it ain't pretty. Doesn't help that I don't know what the right amount is, for a single meal, or a daily basis. I've heard everywhere from 1,400 to 3,000 for dancin' boys. Further, if I start counting, 1,000 sounds like a lot. Maybe my goal for the week should just be to not gorge? I don't know what the right amount to eat is, but I definitely know when I'm in the middle of gorging. So, maybe the goal should be to not gorge, or if I do start to before I'm aware of it, to stop. Okay, that's it.
In other news, I have found myself with a weird "going back in time" sensation. I don't want to get too specific, largely because I don't really understand it, but for the past 2 weeks or so, I've been having feelings I haven't had in a long while, and not good ones. I think it's been at least a year, but I have no concept of time or space, so I might have had all of these last week for all I know. OooooOOOOooo. Mysterious.

Leaving today's post with good news, I now sit with correct posture, thanks to a presentation by exercise specialist Ryan Halvorson (www.thebiomechanics.com).

Squeak

Comments

[redefining-self.livejournal.com]

I can feel your pain. My experience (I'm getting ready to start this all over again) with the diet related part was most difficult.

I can exercise. I know how and I'm trained in the proper form and variations for each muscle group. I'm good at it and I can see when I'm doing it.

I can do cardio. Usually treadmill but recently bicycling has been good for this. Same thing as above. I know how long I've been working out and how far I went.

Easy metrics.

Unless you're prepared to measure (with literally a measuring spoon or cup) your food into portions you aren't going to be able to stick to a very precise number for caloric intake.

This is going to make so much sense when you hear it (and you've probably already come to this conclusion): you body fat is determined by calories in versus calories out. There are very few other factors (even including the type of food you eat) that will impact your body fat content.

For comparison, when I was at my most fit recently I did a resting metabolic rate test. My resting metabolic rate was approximately 2300 calories per day. If I did nothing but sit around I would burn about 2300 calories. I was 270 pounds and running perhaps 2-3 miles per day on the treadmill 3-4 times per week. I was doing muscle workouts the rest of the time.

Toss a workout on top of that and I would burn 3000+ calories per day. My own strictly unprofessional, unedumacated, guestimation is that you are under 1800 per day resting. Your size would indicate less perhaps but you are very active and perform lots of exercises, thus your metabolic rate is likely to be higher.

I suggest going into 24 hour Fitness (other places will do this but I'm not sure which) and request a resting metabolic rate test. The test is around $75-$80. If the price doesn't prove prohibitive it can really shed A LOT of light on your current calorie burning. It will also allow you to begin more closely monitoring your calorie intake.

Above all else, be smart. Don't do anything that can or will jeapordize (sp?) your health. We love the Squeak and demand that the Squeak remain with us that we may continue to love the Squeak. :)

[thepnutgallery]

I used to keep a food journal, and measure out exact serving sizes of food, just to try to keep track of how much I was consuming each day, but that never ended well. On the plus side, it made me accountable for the junk I was eating, and since I couldn't face that, I just didn't eat it. Even now, if I go to the store and start looking at sweets, all I have to do is read the nutrition information/serving size to decide I can't afford the calories. I never did figure out the number of calories in an average bowl of cookie dough. I estimate it at 300 per bowl, even though it's really more like 500-600 or so, and put my blinders on. Basically, as long as I don't have an exact approximation, it's nebulous/not real and doesn't matter/count, even if I estimate it in the thousands.

The RMR test sounds like a great idea. I have an LA Fitness membership through work, as well as some professional contacts, also through work, so we'll see.
One of the important things for me is to find a diet that I can live with forever, rather than one that I'm going to stop once I reach my goals. This diet must therefore include cakes and cookies and the like. I've heard 80/20, or 90/10, and I think those are good ways to go, but I'm worried about how many cakes I can eat in 1/10 of my day/week/month. And I mean that in both directions. One of the diets I've done in the past was 1 cake, or equivalent dessert item, per month. I only kept this up for a month or so, before I realized that I would definitely want to try more than 12 recipes per year.
I just don't know. If I knew that the only way to get a model/dancer's body was to give these things up forever, I could do it, but I know that I can have that body and still have them in moderation. Of course, I don't want them in moderation, I want them in excess, but that's the trick of it, isn't it?

[redefining-self.livejournal.com]

You really nailed the biggest problem with America's obessesion (I'll admit, I'm getting it, too) with dieting: thinking ahead.

Specifically - what diet can I start not to just get down to my weightloss goals but stick with for the rest of my life.

Realizing that occasiona variations (or calorie spikes) in any given diet will likely have no noticeable effect I'd go with the diet that has a very mild weightloss and still allows you to lose weight based on your already active lifestyle.

I could tell you now that if I was exercising as often as you I could continue to eat the junk I am and lose 30 pounds in a month.

As it is I'm moderating diet and still eating stuff I like while gradually ramping up my exercise. Within 3 weeks I'd like to have exercise be daily instead of every other day as it is now.

My current goal is 325 pounds by the first weekend of April. Timeline is tight but I'm already seing the results. That is about 5 pounds per week from the starting point last week.

What we both are forgetting (similar like your excellent example of the nebulous concept of calories :) is that our genetic makeup plays a significant role in what we'll look like and how we'll respond to diet and exercise.

Models are gifted with good genes for appearance based on society's current expectations on appearance. The rest of us have to work at it. Genetics in your case seem to be in concert with good form and trim appearance. That is a good headstart.

The last mile of the marathon is *always* the hardest. I failed the last time in dieting because the last mile got me. Won't happen this time, I garauntee that. And I'll be happy to lend some motivation to you when you need it (and sometimes when you don't since continual validation of our efforts is important).

[rhps-mom.livejournal.com]

I know it sounds a bit silly but I will let you read my WeightWatchers books; the "points" system that they have makes it very easy to judge what you should take in and how you take it in.

[faerierie.livejournal.com]

On the exercise bit, you know you're supposed to be working your muscles every *other* day, right? Like, do crunches one day and push ups the next? If you give the muscles a day to rest in between they'll tone up more nicely and look more defined in the long run.

On the eating bit, I cannot help you. Last night my gym instructor asked for a substitute for chocolate. She tried making some brownie cake thing with carob and thinks she might have screwed up the recipe but now she's convinced that carob is horrible gross stuff. So if you have a foolproof and really really good carob recipe (nothing with peanut butter, they don't like it over here), send it this way. And for that matter... What do you snack on when you crave chocolate? Because I know it's not chocolate. How *do* vegans gorge?

[thepnutgallery]

Curses. Although that explains why I've always looked my best in the two or three days after a given regime, rather than during it.

Unfortunately, I think that carob, unlike tofu, is something that you either like or you don't, rather than having it prepared in a certain way making all the difference. I love the taste of carob and just find the price prohibitive, but I recognize that that puts me in the minority. I would recommend that she try the actual solid stuff, rather than powder, as there is a difference between the two. I can, however, recommend some relatively healthy chocolate recipes. I say relatively because there simply is no such thing as a good for you cake, there is only minimizing the bad cake. I don't really get chocolate cravings much; if I'm desperate, I jump over to TJ's or Whole Foods and buy a bar. A lot of semi-sweet and dark varieties of baking chocolate just kind of happen to be vegan, so it's just a matter of reading ingredients. I used to have pretty bad choco-cravings a couple months ago, but cookie dough (really just flour, sugar and margarine) seems to be my addicition du jour. It's simple, quick, cheap, and very high in calories. Only the first three are pluses, of course.

It's surprisingly easy for vegans to have just as terrible nutrition habits as your average meat-eater. PETA keeps a list of "accidentally vegan" items that a local grocer might stock, although some of them are not technically vegan, and they have a disclaimer for it. Everything from cake frosting to cookies to pie crusts. Additionally, there's a whole bunch of "fake" items that are only marginally less bad for you than the real thing. And of course, being vegan in no way caps the sheer amount of food you can eat. The box of cereal, bowl of cookie dough, and can of garbanzo beans I had yesterday before I posted can attest to that.

ya know...

[tonymisiano.livejournal.com]

It's odd, because you and I seem to relate on occasion with the whole "wanting to be in better shape even though everyone tells us we don't have to we still want to" thing. But you and I have opposite problems. I don't have too hard of a time watching what I eat and how much, I just can't ever get myself to exercise. I mean I do a LOT of walking these days, probably one to two miles a day or so, but that doesn't build any muscle or make my arms and chest look any better. How do you motivate yourself to exercise, or set aside time to, etc.?

Re: ya know...

[thepnutgallery]

I think it's going to be different for everyone. For me, it's just a matter of committing to a certain amount of exercise each day. It started with me just thinking about exercising several times each day. Then I followed through. If I was working, or at the computer at home, or even eating, and the thought occurred to me to exercise, I would get down right there and do crunches, or leg lifts, or whatever. You don't really even have to make time for it, since it only takes a minute or two to do a set of crunches. I've had to alter this at work, since my boss doesn't like me exercising in front of him, so I just go to a different department. Sometimes other people even join me.


Squeak

[lizetta.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this gorging thing last night, since I do it too.

I've heard that doing a sensible fast for a weekend, then maybe longer, like a week, can be helpful in this. It shrinks your stomach and teaches you how to ignore the hunger when it hits.

I've been thinking about doing this, but obviously only after I do some good research in it. If this sounded interesting to you, I could share my research and maybe we could do it together. I know I could use some encouragement!

[redefining-self.livejournal.com]

Interesting thought.

Sounds a little like a natural form of the gastric-bypass.

I'll be very interested to hear what your research in this turns up.

On a side note, I've found that my desire for food drops to almost zero after a good cardio workout. Biologically I understand why this but it seems to have had a lasting effect in that past 4-5 days. I've had very little of what I'd call an excessive desire to eat.

Self-sustaining? Dunno yet.

[thepnutgallery]

I would love to do this with you! Let me know when you find out more about it. Really, I think fasting would be easy, and it would coming down off of it (without eating enough food in one sitting to feed a small village) that would be harder. I think that's the problem people have in general, just on a smaller scale. Keep me posted!

Squeak