Round Two

59 days later...

Hey, I said I'd have more details on Monday. I never said which Monday... *shifty eyes*...

Well, it's been a relaxing couple of months. I tried to do an indefinite 'lessor' version of my 100 Days plan, but my heart just wasn't in it. Why? Well, for one thing, a change in the weather. As soon as winter finally got its butt out of the way and the temperature began to climb, so to did my endorphins. It's summer! Time for ice cream! Hot dogs with the works! Long evenings full of indulgence!

I think I've mostly gotten over the novelty now. Mostly.

I've been clinging to some good habits here and there, surprisingly, mostly exercise-related (two or three days a week, but no yoga on the off days). I've been weighing myself on average every other week and I'm holding steady in the 178-180 range. This morning I was at 179.9. I had already made the decision to get back on the proverbial horse, but that number seemed like a cosmic sign affirming my "buckle down" decision. Any more gain and I'd be back in the 180s, a range I fought long and hard to get OUT of.

And so begins the 2nd "100 Day" challenge of 2013.

The challenges are mostly the same as the first go-round, with just a few tweaks:

• Instead of three water bottles, I'm only holding myself to two. (20 oz) I just don't feel like my body needs the extra water. Between the first two bottles and the juices and teas I'm drinking other places, I'm getting enough.

• I'm bumping the cardio up from four days to five. It's summer. There are tons more choices for cardio. 

• I'm shooting for an 80% success rate instead of 90% but I'm also weighting my "average" score to where the Exercise and Meal Plan challenges are carrying most of the grade. This means that the easy things like popping a multivitamin in the morning aren't skewing the curve for the days I have seven oreos in the evening and blow my meal plan to smithereens.

I've already got temptation gauntlets coming my way. First up, "cupcake day" at the Day Job cafeteria, wherein the chef makes gourmet cupcakes (including a dark chocolate sea salt caramel thing that I almost proposed marriage to the first time I tried it).  However, since this is a repeat cupcake day, the first being about a month ago, I think I can safely assume there will be more cupcake days in the future to be enjoyed.

The second is my friend Emma's wedding, which is part of the reason I must 100% ignore cupcake day this time around. For this I have already made allowances for 1 glass of champagne and 1 piece of cake on top of my dinner. (Also, the dance floor will totally be counting for one of the five cardios).

The 170s have some very exciting milestones to celebrate:

• 177 lbs - my lowest recorded weight back in 2010.
• 174.5 lbs - my BMI goes from "overweight" to "normal" (I don't live or die by BMI labels, but this does mean my little Wii Fit person will shrink, so I'm very excited about that).
• 170 lbs - what will that look like?!?! Can't wait!! 

So here we go again...

How to fall off Wagons (in Varying Degrees)

So...I did not stay on target. Red Leader would be so disappointed.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Week #14. Day 100 of the challenge is next Tuesday!!

Alas, I won't be able to provide final stats at that time because I haven't really kept track the past little while, and at this point I can't remember enough for them to be accurate. And really, what good are incomplete stats? It breaks my little accountant heart.

Don't worry, though. Since I try not to allow my accountant heart to dictate how I actually live my life, I'm doing okay, emotionally. Despite the recent rough patch, from beginning to end, this effort has been far more successful than not, and I don't regret doing it.

However, since confession is good for the soul, part of the reason I haven't had the heart to keep stats is that I've been slowly slipping off the wagon in all departments these past few weeks:

The Coffee Wagon

On Easter Sunday I broke my coffee fast. I figured-- and I still do!--that DOUBLE the lenten period abstaining from coffee was good enough. Once that barrier was broken, things began to escalate. My overall word count has been slipping behind a little, so last weekend I challenged myself to some hard core writing sprints over the weekend and my motivation/reward for achieving that were a few big white chocolate mochas from Starbucks. This week I haven't offended at the Starbucks level, but I have offended with coffee at home nearly every day.

The "Meal Plan" Wagon

This has been a bit touch and go, but I'm definitely in more lax general territory than I was the first 2/3 of the challenge. I'm having two or three carb binge temper tantrums per week. I went to a friend's birthday celebration and ate appetizers and the entire plate of my entree where before I would not have allowed myself any appetizers and I would immediately have put half my entree aside to have as a meal the next day.

Little indulgences, each with its own perfectly reasonable excuse, are slipping through the cracks. If I keep it up, I will soon go from "leaking" to "hemorrhaging".

The Yoga Wagon

My cardio exercise efforts have actually remained pretty steady, however, on "off" days when I don't do cardio, I'm not keeping up on my yoga set. I can recall only one "off" day in the entire past three weeks that I did it. Bad, lazy Faith!

The Water-Drinking Wagon

Hahaha. Just... no.

The Exercise Wagon

Until this week, Week #14, I have gotten a 100% score on cardio. I'm really, really proud of that. This week has been an aberration-- a temporal crux of a bad cold, a sore back, and some scheduling conflicts. As a result, this week only I haven't exercised a jot. And truthfully, I kind of miss it.

So what's next?

This zone - between 180 and 185 lbs, is a truly difficult area for me. It's exactly where I started to fizzle out three years ago when I had my last comparable success. I'm starting to like the way I look, which puts me on a "success" high, and for me that's dangerous for momentum. I use it as an excuse to justify slacking off.

Also, it's finally feeling like springtime in Ohio and that gets my endorphins all skyrockety and that puts me in danger of being reckless.

I am NOT going to revert. I promise.While thinking about all of this these past few weeks, I've come to some decisions and I've had this line from Lord of the Rings running through my head constantly:

 GANDALF: "One stage of your journey is over. Another begins."

(Who knew there were so many epic and applicable nerd quotes to motivate one toward healthy habits?)

Details on Monday.

Temper Tantrum Thursdays

For the past couple-of weeks, I've been having a Thursday-shaped problem, and this is what it looks like:

 

Except, you know, I'm a very tall woman in my thirties, not a seven-year-old boy.

I'm not sure why, but for the past couple of weeks whenever I hit Thursday I've been having an inner temper tantrum with respect to my 100 Days Challenge. It's not just a lack of motivation, it's an anti-motivation.

Lack of Motivation:

 [sigh] "I really don't feel like exercising today..."

vs. 

Anti-Motivation: 

[rips up list of goals and stomps it into the dirt] 

"WHERE ARE ALL THE SNACKS?! BRING THEM TO ME!!! FIVE HOURS OF TV, CHEESE, AND CRACKERS! BRING IT!"

Resentful. That's the word. Resentful that winter won't go away, that I had an unsatisfactory work day, that I keep getting rejected, that the crutch I've always leaned on to comfort me through the boring and the disappointing is dropping everything into a slovenly heap and hiding in food and fantasy the minute I got home. Resentful that my progress is so slow and hard to see day-to-day, both in my weight loss efforts and my publishing efforts.

These temper tantrum Thursdays are a good portion of my lackluster score for weeks 9 and 10.  So you can imagine that I've been approaching today (which is a Thursday, for those of you who might be reading this entry six months from now and don't care to cross-reference a calendar), with no small amount of respect and trepidation.

Fortunately, the waters seem calm for now.

Part of the extremity of temper tantrum Thursdays has been due to cabin fever, with the cold temperatures being every bit as stubborn as the boy in that picture up there. Part of it has been my boredom with the routine and the pressure of the challenge obligations wearing me down (yes, they're self-imposed, but that's what makes them so pressury!). The end is starting to come into focus but it's still four weeks away. I just want to be done! I want my reward day of cares to the wind!

The most important thing, when the challenge is over, is not to let FREEEEDOM!!!! celebrations spiral into exactly the same habits I had four months ago.

We will be tackling that bridge the instant the challenge is over.

Er... plus one week. ;-)

Week #10 update and Star Wars diet tips

The past three weeks have been a roller-coaster ride, in everything but updating this blog, which has been a nice, steady ride of nothing.

Week #8, down 3.1 lbs!!

Week #9, down 0.9 lbs!!

Week #10 (this morning), up 0.7 lbs.

This is only the second time in the challenge that I've shown an increase instead of a loss. Last time it got to me a little, but this time I think I kind of deserved it.

Let me start at the beginning of the roller-coaster ride, with that three lb loss from two weeks ago. The thing about glorious progress like that is that it's dangerous. I've thought often this scene from Star Wars:

Don't get cocky, indeed.

In retrospect, I much rather would have continued losing at a nice, steady 1.5-2.0 per week. Three pounds puts me in the danger zone of being reckless. Little things start to slip through the cracks and I'm all too happy to let them. Truth be told, I was surprised to show a loss on Week #9. I turned in truly terrible stats for week #9, and I think this week's number is somewhat reflective of that.

I'm also starting to weary from the routine. Despite how good it makes me feel, I am never going to love coming home to exercise. Yoga only takes fifteen measly minutes out of my day, but the fact that I've obligated myself to do it makes it hang over my head like Eeyore's cloud all day. With the end of the 100 Days so close in sight (just less than a month now), I'm getting looser and looser in what constitutes a "meal plan"

There are some bright sides, though. First off, only a 0.7 loss? That's peanuts, especially since it's not wholly without cause.  Secondly, I'm really starting to see the effects of my net loss in my waistline and the fit of my clothes. (This actually adds to the "cocky" danger factor. I don't know why. You'd think it would be inducement to rally my efforts even more. I guess I'm just impatient to get to that "I did it! I won!!" moment).

I don't think I'm going to make my 90% goal in all categories, namely my meal plan and water bottle categories. I'm also slightly behind on getting to bed on time, which is funny because it's actually been one of the easiest to keep up. But since I only have to do it 5 out of 7 days, one miss will skew my statistics more drastically than in other categories. Additionally, two weeks ago I had to stay up late a couple of nights to do some story planning with my coauthor on my current writing project. The late evening is the only time she really is ever around to do it, so I chalk that up as a necessary sacrifice, one that I'm not going to ... lose a lot of sleep over. (Hah, puns for a Monday. Moving on).

I was panicking a little on trying to catch up on these categories before the end, and that panic was making me more sullen and resistant to actually doing them every day, so I'm letting off the pressure of achieving them. It makes me sad, but I think I stand a better chance of sticking to good behavior these last four weeks if I'm just focusing on daily victory.

Four weeks. I'm NOT going to cruise the rest of the way. There's still so much to be accomplished in that time frame. I really, really want to hit 177 lbs. Why? Because 177 lbs was the lowest weight I remember achieving three years ago when I last had this sort of success. In order to do that, I need to lose an average of 1.75 lbs per week.

Tough? Yes (Especially with Easter just around the bend).

Doable? I think so.

And then we'll go from there. Bring it on, Week #11. Stay on Target.

Halftime Show

Monday morning at the office. I am sitting here enjoying a small Chai Latte from the Evil Shiny Coffee Bar in the Lobby. It is the most wonderful almost-coffee I've ever enjoyed.

The reason I am indulging is a three-fold celebration.

#1 - I achieved my 100% goal for Week #7
Woo-hoo! Go me!!

#2 - I've officially passed the 10 lb loss mark

#3 - TODAY IS DAY 50 AND I AM HALFWAY DONE!!!

Some "halftime" thoughts.

I had hoped that this would be going faster. Impatience is really hard to overcome, no matter how much I admonish myself otherwise. However, my minimum hope was to lose 20 lbs on the challenge and at the halfway point I've lost 10. Looks like the math checks out.

Slower is better. Yes, yes, I know, I know. This way, I'm not abusing or confusing my body. Neither am I putting a strain on my mind with excessive denial. Things I've gotten to enjoy in moderation these past seven weeks have included cookies, peanut butter toast, ice cream (once, a small custard bowl in honor of Valentine's Day), restaurant food, and lots and lots of honey-sweetened tea.

 I know I haven't been writing the fun filler blog entries that I've been promising. That's because I've been out there! Doing the work! I don't have time to stop and write about it too! Pffft.

Last week I was heavily preoccupied working on yet another editing pass of my theater novel. This one I'm shopping around for publication and I needed to make some changes before I continued with the shopping. And once I get started on an editing pass it kind of burns up all of my concentration until it's finished.

I still feel better. Leaner, more awake.

The Evil Shiny Coffee Bar in the Lobby

Oy. 100% Perfection this week is going well so far, but it's a bit harder than I thought it was going to be. I work for Goodyear and this week our huge shiny modern new headquarters building was officially open for business including the new cafeteria and fancy coffee bar in the lobby.

It's the coffee bar that's really driving me nuts. I love fancy coffee bars. Yes, I know they're overpriced, but I find fancy, overpriced coffee both tasty and comforting, a delightful indulgence in a dreary, cold February world. Thus far in the challenge I've been mostly able to keep an arms' length distance from Starbucks and its evil mates, but now ... it's right there.

On Monday the temptation was the worst. I think because the shiny new building was SO EXCITING and I always want food to celebrate exciting things. Now that we're on Day #3 things have calmed down and I'm doing better. I feel less crazy with temptation and more wistful.

The shiny new building has good aspects too. There's a fitness center (although it doesn't open for another two weeks), and I fully intend to make use of the elliptical machines as part of my cardio once that happens. Also, the new cafeteria menu has more nutrition focus than the old one, so as long as I'm willing to pay for it, I can add some variety to my lunch in the middle of the day.

On another note, I'm ready for spring...

Graphs, Charts, and The 90%

Week #6 is behind us. And what a slippery week it was. I already reported on being sick-- well, that lasted through half the week. Stuck home all day... not feeling up to much of anything. I didn't eat that much, but what I did eat wasn't always necessarily the best for me. Then yesterday (Sunday) I had a severe attack of "I'm tired of this" blues and ate lots of tortilla chips & salsa at lunch and had twice as many cookies as I was allowed in the evening.

Take a look at Week #5 vs Week #6 stats:


 Week #5

Week #6

I'm sorry to say that Week #6 was the first week since the challenge began that I haven't achieved my goal of at least 90% success. Boo!! :-(


There are two pieces of good news, however. First, I'm still on-track with my overall goal-to-date:

Challenge results to-date: 02-18-2013

Not by much, but 91% still counts!


Secondly, despite everything (perhaps some leftover grace from weeks before and a little for being sick) I did have a drop in weight this week-- not much, only 0.7 lbs, but all things considered, I'll take it and be grateful!

Another interesting tidbit-- my weigh-in this morning was exactly the same as the weight I logged when I first set up my new Wii at the beginning of November. This means.... *drumroll*... I have officially lost all my Christmas weight and anything lost from here on out will be "real"!

I finally have enough data to make an impressive-looking chart tracking my progress. Isn't it pretty?

The next ten pounds will be rarely-charted waters. I've dabbled in the 180's on and off through my various efforts the past three years, always dipping in for a taste, but never staking claim. Well, folks, this time my flag is firmly clasped in my hands ready to take up permanent residence.


Actually...no. That's not right. I'm keeping that flagpole in my hands and using to pole to get me through these testy waters and beyond.

In celebration of losing all my Christmas weight and duly motivated by my poor performance this week, I have set myself a special Week #7 goal:  100% in all categories.

... pardon me... *drinks some of water bottle*.... dern water-bottle drinking...

Anyway, where was I? Yes, 100% for Week #7! I can totally do it, I've just never resolved to do so before. Plus, I have the added benefit of some extra-fun exercising on the horizon: We are having a dance party on Friday! Plus I think I'm going to hit up the roller rink again for my cardio on Saturday.

On that note, I'm going to try to take some time to do some exercise-centric blog entries this week, a topic I've been sadly remiss on heretofore.

Good news and road bumps

Well, the good news is that I was down 2.6 lbs this week, which also brings me below the 190 lb threshhold. Woo-hoo!

The less fun news is that I'm sick.

I woke up on Friday morning with a mildly sore throat, which, as I went throughout my day, didn't seem too bad, and by the time I woke up on Saturday morning, felt perfectly fine. I chalked it up to the dry air in our house.

Saturday evening (regrettably after my niece's birthday party), I felt tired and achy, and on Sunday I stayed home from church and slept almost straight through till 3:30 p.m. except for a brief dalliance with breakfast in the morning.

Yesterday (Monday) I stayed behind from work and this morning I thought I was well enough to return until I got there and worked for two hours and kept feeling worse and my boss told me to pack it up.

The thing of it is... I'm not sure what allowances should be made for my challenges, most particularly with respect to eating and exercise.

This "feel better, feel worse" oscillation I've been experiencing since Friday means that I've still been managing to keep up on my cardio, at least through yesterday, but I honestly wonder if I'm not contributing to the pattern by doing so. One thing I notice when I'm sick is how much harder even my yoga is-- although the yoga that I do is relatively easy, throw a virus into the mix and you suddenly realize just how much you're doing to your muscles and breathing. If I'm sick and I do my yoga, I actually sweat.

So maybe forcing myself to do half an hour of dancing on top of that probably isn't the best idea just now? Or does it make a difference? I'm not sure. I'm worried about sluffing off and losing all of this beautiful momentum. Not to mention my 100% completion grade on cardio, which is one of only two categories to maintain that distinction after 5 weeks.

As far as eating goes, well, I did allow myself a carte blanche on tea with honey for the weekend, which is my favorite thing when I'm sick-of-the-sore-throat.  Actually, the way I drink it in these times can more accurately be described as honey with tea to thin it out.

But today when I came home from work I stopped by the grocery store for some sick supplies-- some chicken soup and orange juice, mostly, both of which I was craving terribly, both of which aren't really part of my ordinary meal plan. Orange juice is too sugary-- far better to eat the orange. And canned chicken soup is really high in sodium, plus it's usually not filling enough to satisfy me. Fortunately, my diminished appetite and tendency to want to just sleep all day are keeping a lid on that particular aspect.

I was surprised, however, as I wandered up and down the shelves, how extra-tempting all the goodies were. I'm not even all that hungry, but I'm frustrated with being cooped up in the house and losing control over my routine, and my "food as a means of comfort and control" beast was roaring something fierce. Cookies are easy. Cookies are nice. I'm sick, don't I get a little something special?

In the end I settled for buying Ramen noodles, which are pretty much high-salt empty calories, but do have the magic of chicken broth going for them, and also the fatty broth is a nice lubricant for a tired throat. Plus, they're fun. I like to eat them with chopsticks.

But how to carry on, is the question? I suspect I'll be home from work yet again tomorrow. I didn't really get a chance to replenish my normal food supplies, though I think I can keep a lid on it. But as far as exercise goes... now my bug feels like it's moved more into my chest and my spidey sense is telling me that heavy respiratory exercise might not be the most advisable thing right now.

In conclusion, as an acceptable alternative to intense cardio this week, l hour of light, low impact Wii games (including my daily yoga) will count toward my fitness credit for Week #6.

On another note, we have officially passed the 1/3 milestone of our 100 days!!

Week #4 (and #3)

Okay, this will be a split personality update. I wrote part of it -- the part between the dashes below-- this morning when I was feeling pretty glum. I feel kind of bad subjecting my readers to my unattractive self-pity, but... it's part of the journey, and I think getting it off my chest in written form was cathartic.

- - - - - - - - - - -

7:10 A.M.

I started slipping this week, especially this weekend. Just little things here and there in between the cracks. Also, I'm having a harder and harder time drinking all the water I set out to drink as part of the challenge. It's just not my instinct and also it makes me have to go to the bathroom all the time and that's getting really old.

Anyway, I don't know what, exactly, is the reason-- eating more than I should, not enough water, cyclical body fluctuations, but Week #4 was the first week I didn't lose any weight. I was up 0.7 lbs.

I didn't lose that much in Week #3 anyway-- only 1.7.

Which means my net weight loss for two weeks was ONE MEASLY POUND.

Why do some people shed weight like molting birds shed feathers and why am I not one of those lucky ones? I noticed that my weight at the beginning of November was about 3 lbs less than where I am right now, back when I wasn't even trying to do anything. It's all I can do to just get back to "pre-Christmas" weight and I don't even feel like I really start getting skinnier "for real" until I drop below that threshold. Like everything I've done up until now doesn't count. And then when I'm resetting my goal on my Wii it suggests that a healthy weight for me might be 153 lbs and I just wanted to cry. That weight seems as far away and impossible as the holy grail.

I need to step back and tighten my bootstraps. But it's winter and I'm tired of the cold and the tights and not being allowed comfort food. *sigh*

Anyway, last Thursday officially marked the 1/4 mark.  I thought I'd be a little more celebratory than I am. This bout of extreme self-pity has been brought to you by the number 1 (stupid lb) and the letter M (for Maudlin and Monday).

- - - - - - - - -

9:05 A.M.

Two hours later and a good chat with my wonderful sister, I'm feeling loads better and my determination is renewed. There are lots of little reasons that probably contributed to this week's plateau, not the least of which was that with the exception of my obligatory 1/2 hour of exercise (+yoga) on Saturday morning I spent the entire remainder of the day being a perfect model of sloth and all things sedentary.

My Saturday of supreme laziness derailed a lot of things. I wasn't productive and not getting something done (usually writing) starts a mini-avalanche of dissatisfaction upon my mood. No matter that I specifically bulked up my word count the previous Thursday in order to enjoy that Saturday "worry free".

So. Once again the perils of navigating weekends. This might seem crazy, but I'm super happy to be back to work this morning.

I was also encouraged by the fact that we did our measurements yesterday-- four weeks after our first round, and I was down at least one inch in every measurement except my arms! (which, I've been doing push-ups, so they're probably more buff than they were before?). Two inches off my hips! That was nice to hear.

Two-week results:

 

The word count number is not included in the combined field. 

Observe how my water consumption rate is slipping. In point of fact, it hasn't been 100% since I began, and it's the only category that hasn't had 100% at least once. So... that's one of my goals this week.

.... *stops to take a big chug of water from bottle*...

Where was I? Right. 100% on water for Week #5. Also, I'm going to try to watch less TV and get more reading and break out the sewing machine this week. And also finish my novel. Did I mention I'm this close to finishing my novel. I would've done this weekend if I had bothered writing anything. At all.

Bring it on, Week #5!

Challenge Spotlight: What do you mean by "meal plan" anyway?

The most challenging (and least precise) of all my "mini" challenges is the one called "Stick to my meal Plan"

What is my meal plan? Well, there is a basic core plan and there is some grace allowance for the real world too.

• To take care of my body and have more energy I need to eat better foods. 
• To lose weight (safely and long-term) I need to eat a limited amount of food daily (your basic Calories Burned > Calories Consumed formula)
• To not go crazy out of my mind with boredom and risk falling off the wagon, I need some wiggle room once in a while.

The Core Plan - Limited portions of good foods.

I've tried the controversial Adkins plan, which, good or bad taught me a lot about nutrition from both sides of the debate. It also taught me how I am not built for extreme, self-enforced restrictions, which set me up for binge relief reactions.

I've done counting calories. This approach was both successful in helping me to lose about 20 lbs three years ago (I have since gained it back), and it also taught me a lot about the general caloric value of a lot of different foods. However, like so many, I got weary of the constant need to measure and count.

Marrying everything I've learned into one, the basic "diet" plan I'm roughly using as a guide is the Change One diet & fitness plan, a book I really enjoyed reading for its one-step-at-a-time, surviving real life approach to changing how you eat. I highly recommend it. It's the most non-crazy diet plan I've ever encountered, and was championed by my employer in our company-wide health initiative last year.

Link to the Change One book on Amazon

Based on my takeaway from the book I have structured my "core" meal plan as follows:

• Breakfast: 1 small serving fruit, 1 serving lean protein, 1 serving whole grain, 1 glass V8

• Lunch: 1 Lean Cuisine 

• Supper: 1 serving lean protein, 1 serving whole grain, 1 glass V8

• Evening snack: 2 Kashi whole grain cookies

• Cardio days: 1 banana before working out 

• Optional: Afternoon snack of fruit, unlimited vegetables (with little or no dressing), as much tea as I want, but only two cups daily can be sweetened with honey (1 tsp).

This is the plan for a "basic" day. A weekday, without things like birthday parties or holidays or other things that are part of life cropping up and providing obstacles and temptations.


Grace for the Real World

This is where my "meal plan" rule gets very subjective and where I'm going to have to tread carefully to not slack off. There are birthday parties. There are holidays. Easter Sunday is Day 84 of this challenge. There are family dinners and going out to eat and things where I might not be able to follow my "plan" ahead of time, but if I come up with an alternative that is either a reasonable swap or allow a controlled amount of indulgence for a truly special occasion, commit to it and don't stray beyond it, then I'm still not breaking my "plan" for the day.

Example. Friday of Week #1 my Mom and I went to the movies. We decided to go to Panera beforehand for supper. I love the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad there, and it's full of good things-- greens, nuts, chicken, apples, but they use a lot of dressing and it's pretty high in sugar. Giving it some thought ahead of time, I decided that the salad with a whole wheat baguette as my side would satisfy my supper plan closely enough, and to make up for the sugar in the dressing I would forgo my evening cookies that night.

That's what I decided. That's what happened. And I got a check mark in "stick to my meal plan" for the day.

I'll take each "special" day as it comes, one at time. I've had some victories so far-- I'm 100% clean avoiding office temptations, and that's a huge boon.


Another reason that the established "meal plan" isn't nailed down is that I might need to adjust it in a general way. Suppose I find myself losing weight too quickly after a few weeks? I don't really think this is going to happen, but it's just an example.

In any case, this is my true test of resolve: "No you can't have more" for 14 whole weeks...

Saturday I'm having some theater friends over for games and movies. I'm having tacos but they're sure to bring all sorts of desserts and chips and goodies. I still haven't come up with a plan...

Nothing like dieting to make me want to be even more anti-social than I already am!

Kitty Yoga

My cats can sometimes make exercise time interesting. For example, Lucy, my little lap-cat-snuggle-bug has decided on THREE occasions that the perfect time to curl up on my lap is just when I'm preparing to do the Bridge pose:

... and then she STAYS on my lap for the entire duration of the stretch. By the third time I'd managed to get my giggling under control enough to actually focus on stretching, but of course nobody is ever handy with a camera.

Toby, my handsome feline prince, likes to rub on my legs if it's close to feeding time. He has a sixth sense about when he can butter me up when I'm helpless to retaliate (in the form of cuddles)-- exercise being one of them. 

The trickiest Toby rub attack to deal with is when I'm planking (see below), because he goes under me and it tickles and then he walks around my face and his tail tickles my face. As if an ab workout wasn't hard enough already.

Week #2 Roundup

Two weeks down and 1/8 of the way finished!


Weekly success rates:

Adhering to my bedtime: 80%
Taking my vitamins: 100%
Daily Yoga/Strength: 100%
30 minutes cardio 4x week: 100%
Drinking 3 water bottles daily: 86%
Sticking to my meal plan: 100%
No pop/ no coffee: 100%

Overall success rate: 95%

Challenge: ACHIEVED!

Weight Loss: 3.3 lbs!!!


This is a perfect number, really! It's nice and substantial but not huge enough that it's going to my head and pushing me into the danger zone of reckless. My average weight loss for the first two weeks is 2.5 lbs and that's super healthy.

Let's see about trying to hold that pace.

Thoughts/observations:

The "new" excitement of putting my plans into motion has definitely worn off, and this weekend it was extra tough to get by without indulgent snacks. Part of that is my fault, because I devoted most of Saturday to reading and watching Netflix (with slight detours for writing, exercise, and light chores), and try as I might the urge to have comfort food while watching TV has not lessened. I'm going to have to come up with some more proactive strategies to deal with this problem, since I've still got a long way to go and there's still a lot of winter to hole up against too.


I do have some ideas...


As to how I feel... level, level, level. This is such a win. Bedtime has been the easiest, most enjoyable change to adopt for this challenge. I'm waking up more easily and I'm not feeling sluggish during the day. I'm learning to separate physical weariness from mental weariness. A good workout is enough to shake me free of the latter, most of the time.

Weekly word count: 4,518. Not as much as last week, but still making me happy, and I'm close to finishing a first draft of this manuscript. The reason I include it here is because part of my long-term goals for this challenge is to be healthier not just for my own vanity (that's a huge part of it, yes) but so I can live my life better, and writing is my thing. I'm not the best at disciplining myself to do it, so prioritizing my time and finding the best way to make it happen has been a fun sidebar to fold into this challenge. It's a way to think of my success in a different way than just pounds on a scale. Pounds run the risk of coming back, but these words are my achievement forever and I achieved them now.

(Provided I'm making my appropriate backups, as should every writer, every day. Heh).

And now, a motivational song for Monday!

Successes and Failures, Week #1

Week One is the toughest, so they say, but for me I always find it goes well, I guess because of the excitement of something new. Perhaps Week #2 is my true "first" week.

Notwithstanding I had some moments of triumph, caution, and failure last week.

Wednesday: Family Dinner

My Mom found a recipe on Pinterest that she wanted to try. Just about every other thing she says these days is preceded with the phrase "I saw this thing on Pinterest..." It was for baked chicken smothered in cooked spinach, cheese, and artichoke hearts. Yummy!!

"Will that fit into your diet?" she very courteously and considerately asked me (before we fully committed to this dish being the star player in the family sit-down-together dinner she wanted to have since my brother was coming by to visit after work that day).

Hmmmn... good question. Baked chicken? check. Artichokes? check. Spinach? Double check. Cheese and other stuff to make rich sauce? Ehhhhhh.... wobbly.

I haven't yet talked specifically about the "meal plan" part of my list of goals, which is for me the most important, the greyest, and most slippery slope. For now, suffice it to say I'm not calorie counting (too work-intensive and not something I care to do for the rest of my life), but I'm focusing more on portion control and maintaining a certain mix of food groups. The cheese was an indulgence but one I decided was acceptable if I kept those portions in check.

This magic meal was hot and ready and waiting the minute I walked into the door Wednesday evening and we sat down to eat right away. I got a small dinner plate out and put two of the small pieces of chicken (with the sauce) and a small extra blog of the spinach-cheese-artichoke mixture, doing my best to try and make it mostly spinach.

"That's it, this is all I get," I said to myself, looking challengingly down at my plate.

We sat down to eat. I took a bite and immediately felt the "diet depression" descend because it was super delicious and I wanted to inhale my entire plate and go for seconds. And I could've done it too.

"Nope, this is all you get," I re-emphasized to myself. I still needed to drink my third water bottle for the day so I had that with me and I focused on finishing off as much of it as I could with the meal since I'm disinclined to drink a lot of anything between meals. I took smaller bites of my food and tried to savor and rather than inhale it, just like all the nutrition pundits, books, and blogs have suggested, and you know, it actually worked. Between the food and the water, I wasn't feeling physically hungry by the time I got through my portions and by the time I downed my evening glass of vegetable juice I was actually feeling stuffed.

But I didn't collapse into a food coma. That's probably important to note.

The evening moved along. A few hours later I had my evening snack and shortly thereafter went to bed.

I had triumphed over my enemy, the desire for seconds. What would have been my seconds became a repeat of the same delicious meal the next evening.


Saturday: The Theater Party

My theater company had our annual "character awards" ceremony on Saturday night, with the promise of pizza, cake pops, and soda provided. Obviously this was a dangerous situation. After some thought I came up with the plan of foregoing my evening whole grain cookies in favor of one or two cake pops (depending on their size) and eating my dinner just before I left in the hopes of staying away from the pizza.

However, something atypical happened on Saturday. I had gone roller skating that morning with my little sister (mentoring program, not my actual little sister, for those of you who know her), and I skated hard. I wanted to make sure the skating counted as my cardio for Saturday. It's a really fun workout, though I do wish they'd turn everybody around and let them go in the opposite direction a little more often.

Anyway, I think as a result of this heavy workout, my metabolism revved up into high gear. I was extra, extra hungry all day long and I know it wasn't just in my head. I ate my supper just as planned before leaving for the theater party, but I still felt ridiculously hungry. When I got there, and saw the pizza and all the desserts (no cake pops-- but a bunch of other choices), it only got worse.

After half an hour's deliberation, I finally made a choice. I chose one piece of pizza (medium to small-ish, but with lots of olives), and one cookie (some sort of super delicious cranberry oatmeal mix). Then I sat at my table with my friends and doodled like a mad woman until the awards were over so that I wouldn't be tempted to go back for seconds. It actually wasn't that difficult. Once the pizza had settled down I finally, finally didn't feel hungry anymore. I didn't even think twice about the pop, so that was a win all around.

Even though eating pizza technically lost me my "stick to meal plan" points for the day, I still felt like it was a victory since I'd kept it under control-- until I got home. Then my brain did this:


Evil Brain: You've already lost your points for today... you might as well have extra evening snacks.

Me: But I'm not hungry anymore, and it's almost time for bed anyway.

Evil Brain: Oh, come on, you know you always want an extra bagel in the evenings. Have your usual cookies anyway. They're all healthy!

Me: Oh, all right. Since tonight is a lost cause anyway...


And then I ate about 600 calories I didn't need. Anti-success story.


Still, the situation has given me much to reflect upon with regards to recognizing true hunger and how to cope with it.


Next check-in, the Week #2 results!!

Challenge Spotlight: Water, Water everywhere...

Water is really important. It is also really boring to drink. To me.

"Oh, but I just love drinking water!" said all my high school friends ever. It felt like. Actually I'm only thinking of one specific person whom I really love and who really meant it when she said it, but I still hear it often enough that I feel ashamed, like I'm doing something wrong in feeling open animosity towards that one substance your body needs more of than anything else to, you know, survive.

Drinking water as your go-to beverage of choice is just a snooze-fest to me. I'm a sweet tooth. Almost anything else is more interesting.

But I know drinking the right amount of it will help keep me all properly flushed and stuff.... blah, blah, blah... and also help me lose weight so I've Just. Gotta. Do It.

Three 20-oz water bottles a day is the goal. (In addition to the vegetable juice I will probably consume for breakfast and dinner and also NOT counting any water I chug down as a replenishment after working out).

After a week and a half, I'm finding this one of the most annoying aspects of my challenge, and I'm seriously tempted to cut it back to two water bottles a day because I'm drinking a lot more unsweetened herbal tea than I was expecting and I never feel thirsty for a third bottle and it's making me have an even closer relationship with ye olde water closet than I already had (which was quite close enough for my tastes already, thank you very much).

I'll think about it. But I'll try to give "the three" at least three full weeks.

In the meantime, here's a dumb quirk to expound upon. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you....

(drumroll)

The SMART WATER bottle!!

Let the product endorsement begin. Isn't it smooth? Isn't it lovely? Doesn't it make you feel chic to drink from it? And isn't it nice how it doesn't crinkle loudly enough for the whole office floor to hear every time you pick it up? (Less obvious from just the sample photo).

The funny thing here is I'm not plugging the water (which... tastes like very lovely bottled water designed to make us feel better about our drinking choices, don't get me wrong) but I'm plugging the bottle. I really, really like the shape of the bottle. It is, for whatever reason, pleasing to me and I am more likely to drink dutifully if it comes in this bottle and say, an Evian bottle or a Dasani bottle.

I CANNOT EXPLAIN IT ANY BETTER. I AM JUST WEIRD THAT WAY.

So I buy two or three, drink and refill their contents until the bottles get so scuffed and gross I can't stand it any more, and then buy some more.

Also, my cats really love playing with the lids when I'm done with the bottles. 

Week #1 Roundup

Well, Week #1 is officially under my belt! Hopefully my belt is a little bit smaller as a result.

Weekly success rates:

Adhering to my bedtime: 80%
Taking my vitamins: 100%
Daily Yoga/Strength: 100%
30 minutes cardio 4x week: 100%
Drinking 3 water bottles daily: 90%
Sticking to my meal plan: 86%
No pop/ no coffee: 100%

Overall success rate: 94%

Challenge: ACHIEVED!

I stepped on the scale this morning and I admit I was a little bit disappointed to discover my weight loss for the week was only 1.8 lbs.

*frowny face*

I had been hoping for something a little more dramatic since the first week is supposedly all detox and fluid balancing and such.

However, I'm trying to have the right attitude and keep my chin up.

Here are all the reasons a mere 1.8 lb loss is encouraging.

• It's still a loss, and since I measured at the same time of day, it's probably not due to during-the-day fluctuations.
• I was wearing shorts last week and this week I was wearing workout leggings. That's worth a few ounces, right?
• It will keep me from getting cocky and reckless in my food efforts this week.
• Losing slowly is better for you anyway.
• Even at this rate, I'll still lose 25 lbs by the end of the challenge.
• It's almost a certain time of the month, which makes its share of contribution.

Now, more importantly than what the scale says, I should talk briefly about how I feel.

I feel really good.

At the moment, I don't feel like scaling Everest (see last bullet point above), but since about Day #3 onward I have felt level, balanced, and the cloud of malaise that ordinarily hovers over my head is basically gone.

I got almost 6,500 words written toward my novel this week. That alone makes it a quantifiable success.

Onward and upward! (downward?...)

Challenge spotlight: Yoga/Strength

My high school gym teacher used to shout something as part of our daily stretch routine:

"Toes together, knees together! Lock those knees!"

I am severely bow-legged. I physically cannot do this, something which always amused me greatly in gym class. So I was forced to settle for toes together, knees locked-but-about-three-inches-apart.

These days I settle for toes together, knees together but NOT locked. If I do this, I can actually touch my toes on the Sun Salutation.

This is how my established Yoga set goes:

• Half-Moon Pose
• Warrior Pose
• Sun Salutation
• Triangle Pose
• Bridge Pose
• Downward-Facing Dog

... all as dictated by my beloved Wii Fit Plus program.

In addition, for the moment I'm doing the 30-40 second plank and 5 pushups from the knees.

I like doing these stretches. I have a really long back subject to lots of kinks and knots. With any luck (and a lot of dedication) I will be doing this every single day of the 100 Day Challenge.

(Someday I'd like to do 10 good strong "real" pushups (not from the knees) in a row. I have hopes and dreams, you know. But I also have abysmal upper body strength so I think this is a pretty awesome yet realistic goal, all things considered)

I love doing the Yoga on Wii Fit, once I figured out which ones I really enjoy and can perform. (I can't do the Tree, nor anything else that involves balancing on one leg, really). It's relaxing and feels good. Especially the Triangle Pose, which stretches like four obscure things at once.

Also, when I do the Triangle Pose, I usually get this song stuck in my head and sing it with "Triangle Pose" substituted for "Triangle Man"

Challenge Spotlight: I'm sorry, did you say "No Coffee"?

CHALLENGE: No pop, no coffee.

For most of my life-- heck, even for most of my adult life-- I haven't been a coffee person.

(Read that again in case you skimmed-- HAVEN'T been a coffee person).

What changed, you may ask?

Why, I started hanging out with my highly enabling writing group on a semi-regular basis and I was introduced to flavored creamers and things sort of snowballed from there. Now I really like coffee if it's highly creamed and highly sugared, but this fashion of drinking it translates to lots of empty calories. Hence... the challenge of trying to cut it out while I lose weight.

One of the nice things about this bit of challenge is that it's easily "replaced" by drinking tea (black, green, or herbal), which almost uniformly satisfies my craving for something hot and comforting in the morning, evening, or wintry midday. Exploring different teas will be an entertainment of sorts as I go along.

The other nice thing is that coffee will most likely be acceptable to pick up drinking again when I hopefully lose the weight I'd like to lose and am ready to bump back up to a "maintain" level of calorie intake.

Soft drinks are a more life-long nemesis. I say "pop" and will continue to do so for the duration of this blog. Feel feel free to start lively conversations about the various regional nomenclature for soft drinks-- I have friends to whom the word "pop" is ridiculously funny for some reason.

I drink mostly diet pop, not due to any pretensions that it's more beneficial to my health, but a preference for the taste. I've found that pop is, to me, a lot like cigarettes are to smokers. I did a 30 day "Stop the Pop" campaign last year which I achieved, but I was amazed to discover how many different ways I enjoy sucking down on sweetened carbonation-- during a meal, when I'm particularly thirsty, and especially with pizza. Pizza and a dark pop are like bread and butter to me. Without a Diet Pepsi or Diet Dr Pepper (my particular kryptonite), I sometimes don't even see the point of pizza.

The detriments of pop-drinking are so great that I'd love to be one of those people that can give it up entirely. I'm not sure that's possible, but learning to live without it for 100 days is surely a place to start. We'll see what things look like on the other side.

So today is day three and I haven't had either of these beverage types since lunchtime last Sunday.  For last year's "30 Days" campaign I got the most monstrously evil caffeine withdrawal headache, so I was prepared for something similar, but it was surprisingly more navigable this time around.

Ooooh, I just used the word "navigable"....

The Danger Hour

My various dieting discoveries over the past three years have illuminated my greatest weakness in long-term nutritional success:

THE DANGER HOUR

(dun-da-duuuuuuun)

I'm really, really good at eating a healthy breakfast, and eating a light but nutritious lunch. I can breeze through the first ten hours of the day like a Model-of-Moderation Robot ®.

But then I get home.

And all of that moderation transforms into "I Need to Hibernate for the Never-ending Winter*!!"

(*irrespective of the actual season)

In other words, I forage. I scour the kitchen and start scarfing down anything quick and easy and enjoyable-- chips, cheese and crackers, jelly toast, cereal, whatever's on hand. I usually don't even bother with plates or sitting at the table. I just stand at the counter scarfing and look for something to scarf next.

I think this habit is an evil marriage of all the reasons I love food-- comfort, celebration, and boredom. If I've had a bad day, I'll pillage the cupboards for comfort. I'm also celebrating having reached the end of the work day.

Then there's the fact that I'm actually, you know, hungry. I definitely need to eat. Just... with control.

The closer I get to bedtime, the easier it gets to resist this scavenging instinct, hence the labeling of the term "Danger Hour" (though it doesn't disappear entirely). But there is a red zone and I need to figure out how to navigate it smartly.

So...

Strategies

(1) Get out of the kitchen.

Out of sight, out of mind. Unless it's actually time to eat supper, just don't go in there at all.

(2) Eat at the table.

When it is supper time, fix everything properly, on a plate, with a place setting, and put away all extra food before sitting down to eat. After eating, see strategy #1 above.

[Last night I actually ate my supper downstairs watching TV and I was fine, so this one might be extraneous, but it's something to keep in my back pocket]

(3) Keep brain (and hands) occupied. 

Distractions, distractions, distractions. Hopefully, half the time this will be achieved by means of exercise. However, on off days good choices for distracting myself (and more importantly, making it inconvenient) from overeating are sewing or playing video games. Stuff that uses my hands to where mindless snacking simply is not an option.



My insatiable desire to snack while reading or watching TV is a different (though similar) hurdle, and probably best for the topic of another post.


In other news, Day 1 was a great success!! I feel tired, but a good tired, probably due to a combination of caffeine withdrawal, first time exercising in four weeks, and still trying to play games with my sleep schedule. But I stuck to my meal plan and falling asleep didn't take long.

Further up and further in!

And we're off!

Okay, official starter stats are in:

Weight: 198.4 lbs

Bust: 44.5"
Waist: 37"
Hips: 47.5"
Thigh: 27.5"
Arm: 13.5"


BEFORE PICTURES:

My sister said I had to make "blah depressed" face for it to be a proper "before" picture. Not sure if you can see it, but the zits on my cheek and the flat, frizzy hair add an extra touch of dowdy!

I gave a lot of thought to what shirt to wear for my before/after pictures.  I settled on this tank top because when I look in the mirror (and suck in my tummy) my eyes play optical illusions with me and I think it looks one way and it really doesn't. I'm curious (and hopeful) that I can get reality to match -- or come closer to-- my trick vision.

 (I especially love the shoes-- there weren't part of the plan, really)

Here we are toasting to our success! (with water-- her idea!! But we did bust out the real champagne flutes for the occasion! )

In other news, I managed to get out of bed and get going with my alarm clock at 5:30 a.m. This is probably due to first day adrenaline, but it still feels good. I already got my daily minimum writing done!

Challenge spotlight: To Sleep, Perchance to Energize?

GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP
(and following this thing called a "Routine")

I'm a night-owl. Have been since I was little, if my mother is to be believed. My brain has a tendency to want to wake up around 9:00 p.m. or so, usually in spite of how tired I may be otherwise.

But... I have a day job. One that includes a long drive and a long walk just to get to the office. So staying up late (especially in the last few years of aging) has been more and more ill-advised.

Back in November I started trying to go to bed at 11:00 on weeknights. It was honestly hard at first. I was more used to staying up to midnight or 12:30, sometimes even 1:00 am, just watching TV or reading or piddling around on the internet. However, after a couple of weeks my body (and my brain) got used to it, and I've definitely noticed a difference in my alertness level during the day.

For the 100-day challenge I'm going to try and bump this bedtime up to 10:00, which is going to be really, really hard, but could be really rewarding.

In addition to going to bed at a certain time of night, I'd really like to be able to wake up at a certain time of the morning.

This is a much bigger challenge. In high school and college I was one of those people who slept as long as humanly possible before bounding out, flying through the bare minimum of dress and hygiene time and bouncing out the door with breakfast in hand on the way to my very full day.

I am not 22 anymore. This is no longer the case. I need time to wake up, clear my brain cobwebs, snuggle my cats, etc.

On the rare occasion that I actually commit to waking up the mornings (I tend to make love to the snooze button for half an hour), they can actually be the most productive for me. Maybe it's the quiet. Maybe it's the psychology of cleaning something being a more appealing choice than going out in the cold to get to work (as opposed to the evenings when I'm tired and the choice is clean something vs. sit and watch TV).

My hope is that I can follow a 10:00pm - 5:00 am sleep schedule. This year, I have a very specific reason I want to be early-morning productive, but I'll talk about that at a later date.

I will be back on Monday. The big'un. DAY ONE!!! Measurements and weigh-in and a "before" picture, if I'm feeling especially brave.

In the meantime, ♪♫ "When you wake up, WAKE UP! It's healthy!" ♪♫

Hello, World!

So, like a lot of people around the New Year, I want to trim up this year, hopefully to the tune of about about 20-30 lbs.

More importantly (and more permanently) I want to learn to control how I eat instead of feeling like how I eat controls me. I'm a junk food nut. A chronic sweet tooth. I eat as a response to stress, to boredom, and to celebrate. At times I eat just because it's what I've learned to do.

Over the past three years I've done a lot of reading on weight loss, exercise, and nutrition. I've had successful runs at some attempts to eat smarter, but I always compensate for my sacrifice by over-indulging in some other area.

Examples:

• I've stuck to a good meal plan for a spurt and done pretty good with exercise for a spurt, but I've never successfully spurted them together. And I don't want to spurt, anyway, I want to sustain. That's kind of the point.

• I cut out lots of sweets but would drink lots of diet soda to satiate my sweet tooth, which really doesn't do any good, no matter what the calorie count says on the can/bottle.

So, the idea behind the "100 Day Challenge" is this: combine everything I Know that I Need to do to lose those 20-30 lbs and feel better as a rule instead of as an exception.

For the 100 day period of January 7 to April 16 I will try to achieve at least a 90% success rate in these specific areas of challenge:

• Getting enough sleep (7-8) hours per night
• Taking my vitamins
• Doing Yoga/Strength exercises every day
• Doing 30 minutes of Cardio at least 4 times a week
• Drinking at least 60 oz of water a day
• Cutting all coffee and pop (or soda or coke for those of you non-Ohioans)

....and the very, very hardest:

• Sticking to my Meal Plan

If it I am successful, well, then it will be time to decide what to do next. For now, I'm focusing on the short term. The blog will be for progress reports, funny anecdotes, success and failure stories, and various other colorful fun I'm making a list to include.

Also, because I'm an accountant, I will be counting my success with a fancy spreadsheet, and there may be charts and graphs. ;-)