Know what I am not great about these days?

Almost everything.  My house is a mess, my eating is a mess, the weight on the scale is a mess, my activity level is a mess.

What am I doing ok at? Hmm.  Well.  Realizing the stuff above.  The rest could use some work.

Noted. On it.

Intention

For the past 2 or so years, I've started and quit about 400,000,000 eating ideas.  The one thing that is constant is that they are restrictive, I crave what's being restricted or get somewhere out of my control and eat something restricted and then the floodgates open and I eat all the things. That's not particularly healthy or healthful. 

I've tried counting calories, but I get all weird and permissive.

I've tried Weight Watchers and it LITERALLY makes me obsessed with food, what I can fit in, what I can't fit in, etc. 

I've tried clean eating and had a lot of success, but it's easy to backslide.


So here is what I am trying... Accountability.  Just eating with intention.  Taking a moment to notice if I am really hungry or if something else is going on there.  It's not perfect.  Sometimes I still make unhealthy choices, but that's ok.

What I am doing, stripped down, is taking BAD or GOOD off the table.  It's just food. Which is just energy.  I'm working on NOT flogging myself for every mistake.  I'm working on listening to the anxious voice in my head, acknowledging, then moving on. I'm generally in charge of what's happening in my head, regardless of if I feel in control of it at the time.

I really, truly believe that once you start loving yourself for you, the rest kind of right sizes itself.

So, for today, I am exercising with intention, eating with intention, taking notice of the details. 

It doesn't matter if I lose weight.  Not even a pound.  I just need to make the healthiest choice I can in the moment and move on to the next decision.

Calm

A group of friends and I left Weight Watchers.  We knew we needed the accountability of getting together, craved the conversation, and wanted a reason to get together a week.

Enter Anne.  Anne is a former Weight Watchers leader and one of the most engaging people I know.  She's a new mom who is also studying to become a Certified Life Coach.  She came up with the great idea of bringing a group of people together and having us work together towards our goals.  

This morning was the inaugural session.  We all converged on Anne's house and made some coffee and settled in.  We needed to coo over the world's cutest baby, of course, but mostly it was a positive, honest, raw conversation.  Anne facilitated it wonderfully, had us thinking of things in terms of how things are moving you towards your goals, how things move you away from your goals.

We didn't focus on points, calories, the number on the scale, success, failure.  Just on us and each other.

And it was powerful.

My anxiety has been kicking my ass lately.  All the time, actually.  So I picked the word calm for my week.  I need to approach the week with calm intentions to meet my goals this week.  Tomorrow morning, I will calmly take my dog for a walk.  Tuesday morning, I will run with Conner before work and walk 3 miles with him after work.

Calm.  I will tell the voice in my head that brings up things that aren't great, makes me question how I am, how I am doing, my worthiness- that I hear it and be calm around it.

I'm going to make myself better, stronger.  Even if I don't ever lose a pound, I'm getting better every day.

June

Today is June 1.  Let's look back on May and see what I accomplished.  Some of this is real accomplishment and some is brain dump because of really lax blogging.

•  I made serious progress changing my relationship with food.  At the end of May, I stopped counting points (which is a SERIOUS step away from disordered eating in my view) and started logging calories.  There is something about that Free For All mentality that really leads to bad things in my head.  I've done some seriously disordered things as a Weight Watchers member that I wouldn't do just in life.  As a Weight Watchers member, I didn't change my relationship with food AT ALL.  I just changed the garbage I binged on.  Going to a meeting lead by another binge eater is NOT what I need to be doing.
•  I stepped completely away from Weight Watchers.  The leader I connected to the most isn't a leader anymore (but is still a friend.)  The leader I could kind of relate to left my meeting and went to another state.  That left us with a leader I cannot relate to.  I find that particular leader triggering because SHE still has so much work to do to change her relationship with food.  She mentions AT LEAST once per month that she tried emotional eating again and it didn't help her.  I am sure seeing her standing there, 160 lbs lighter is inspirational to some, but to me, hearing her talking about continuing with emotional eating is really triggering.  Sorry, disordered eater here.   I've mentioned here that there's a disconnect for me between Weight Watchers promoting a 'healthy' lifestyle and their endorsement of artificial sweeteners, tons of chemicals, fat free dairy, INCLUDING CHEESE, etc.
• Mile a Day May.  Well, I haven't run a mile in 2 weeks.  Last week, I got a TERRIBLE cold.  Like I missed work for 2 days. I never do that. Then my cough held on for another week. Then I got another cold.  I've continued to walk every day, and probably actually moved my body at least 100 miles in determined exercise in May.    I will keep running 3 times per week, and walking all of the other days but for now, I'm delighted with my activity level except...
• STRENGTH.  OH MAN, I am bollocks at strength lately.  I'm really wanting to focus on my butt and my legs.  And do some arm work.  I'll do some body weight exercises every day in June.  PROMISE ;)
• Yoga- I started stretching for 5 minutes after my runs.  But it's not enough.    I'm going to do some more in June, because it's good both for my strength and my flexibility. 
• I'm changing my focus to learn to love myself as I am.  I'm not moving with ANY weight loss intention right now.  I'm just trying to live a healthy life and not gain weight.  I think this will be a good exercise for me.

So, what's up for June?  Some stuff I'm excited about.  Some stuff I am kind of meh about.

Excited! for:

• Some friends and Raj's sister are visiting in a couple of weeks.  Can't wait to see everyone again!
• My friends bought me tickets to see Cyndi Lauper and Cher for my birthday!  I haven't been to a concert in YEARS and WHAT A COOL CONCERT THAT WILL BE.  
• Taking a PTO day with one of my BFF.  I love hanging out with her.
• Father's Day.  I'm delighted that it's coming up, that Raj will get to spend it with his friends that are here.  He's an amazing Dad.  Dev and I are lucky to have him.
• Relay for Life

Meh:

• Actually turning 40
• Doing 40 push ups on my 40th. 

I'm really feeling like I'm in a great place right now.  I hope you are as well.

Mid-May Update

Several things going on right now....


First up, Mile a Day May.  HOLY MOLY do I feel strong.  I've shared here before that I am slow and I am totally fine with that.  BUT this morning's two mile run was amazing.  I wasn't worried about the amount of time I had left, my speed, my distance, etc.  I was just running.  My first mile, it's hard to quantify my speed because it also had my warm up walk in there.  But my second mile, well, that was pretty strong, for me.  Mile two was 12:07.  Given that my fast mile (a one-off) was 11:17, this is a very strong second mile.  It was one of those mythical runs were you feel like you could just keep going forever, if only you had unlimited time. (I don't,  I have to hurry back from my run so that Raj can go to work)- Yesterday was intervals and I struggled through them all.  Weird.  But maybe that 12:07 is like my happy pace?? I just don't know.

Second, Sugar.  I am not missing sugar at all.  My food cravings are way down and I am sitting around 1400-1800 calories per day.  I'm naturally eating more on days when I have CRAZY high activity.  I'm very happy right where I am at right now and hope to carry on like this.

Third, scale?  Honestly, I don't know.  The scale was making me crazy, so I am off it right now.  I will go to Weight Watchers for weigh in and meeting on Sunday, but I'm really pulling all the way away from Weight Watchers right now. 

Fourth- Weight Watchers.  I'm trying to make peace with the program.  I'm still paying for it, still going to meetings (most weeks) but I am NOT using the tools. AT ALL.  I turned off my active link, am wearing a fitbit instead.  I'm counting calories instead of points and doing really well.  So mainly I am paying $42 per month to go stand on a scale and talk about food with others.  I enjoy my meeting, but that's a pretty hefty price to pay for an hour of talk a week. 

Fifth- wheat.  I don't miss it.  I had been missing pasta, but really, what is pasta but a vehicle to eat sauce?  So, I got a Veggetti and OMG, I AM BACK.  In my opinion, pasta sauce tastes better over zucchini than it does over noodles.  I'm so happy eating this way.  I just registered for a big work conference and listed wheat as a special diet consideration.  I don't think I have a gluten problem, but I am afraid that suddenly eating wheat after weeks and weeks without could cause... uhm, embarrassing problems at a work event.

So, no loss on the weight front, that I know of, my my runs are telling the real story.  I am happy and comfortable where I am, eating the way I am and I have no intentions of making any changes.  I'm still trying to decide what to do about Weight Watchers.  I'd welcome anyone's advice, guidance, or words of wisdom.

Mile a Day May

At the end of April, the end of my challenge, I was looking for something to do.  I'd already been doing Couch to 5K so it seemed natural for me to challenge myself to run a mile every day in May.  So far, this has been going very well.  My run is getting stronger, I'm getting faster, I'm forcing myself to work hills and am generally happy with my run.

Know what I'm bad at/about?  Stretching.  If you run, you  need to stretch after, y'all.  I get bored from this so I like to act like I am totally immune to the needs of stretching but OMG, one pole dancing class was enough to let me know that I am tight in the legs and hamstrings.

So today, I set my HIIT timer to chime every 30 seconds.  I'm able to just focus on stretching and not wonder how long I've held each stretch.  I totally felt my muscles releasing tension and am energized after my run.

I continue to feel like I am working off of Weight Watchers message, but the accountability of the meetings is really important to me.  So, I'm counting calories, moving more and most importantly, avoiding sugar and wheat.   Somewhere after the 4th day of no sugar, I stopped wanting it.  I don't want fake sugar, I don't want real sugar.  I don't want honey (with the exception of some granola bars I made for my son!)  I just want real, healthy food. 

Having a couple of challenges going at once and I'm enjoying life quite a bit.  I made a bit of a life change because I started running before work.   It's good for the dog, who is a jerk, because he gets exercise before he's crated all day.  It's good for me because I get a minimum of 30 minutes of  activity before I get a chance to decide not to do it.  It's good for me because it helps me set my intention for the day.

I'm not losing any weight right now, for some reason.  That's ok, but it is disappointing.  I've got at least 50 if not 80 lbs to go.  I just keep working hard and moving towards my goals, little by little, day by day.

OOOOH Sugar

So the whole 'No Sugar, No Wheat' thing is getting easier and easier.  I don't feel like I am missing anything, I'm way less hungry and the natural sweetness of food really shines through now.

I'm also starting to understand a little more about the way my body works.  For example, this week we added a second fruit back into to our diets.  I was happy because I missed that fruit so I packed up a banana to go with my homemade yogurt and frozen cherries and headed to work.  All other things were normal.  I had fewer vegetables to compensate for the extra fruit.  WELLL, I was ravenous with the addition of the banana.  Maybe the banana plus the cherries plus the carrots was too much for me?  All I know is that I probably ate about 500 calories more eating the banana over not eating it.  Interesting.

So yesterday instead of a banana, I took strawberries as my second fruit.  I had no such effect.  Another observation I've made is that I'm no where near as hungry, so I can definitely scale back my portions.  First a little then maybe a lot in the future.

I've been taking quinoa tabbouleh with chicken and avocado for lunch.  Delicious and filling but I need to shake it up next week so I don't get bored.  Snacks have been veg with hummus and yogurt with fruit.

Workouts have been pretty good.  I couldn't face the thought of 30 Day Shred coupled with running and a lunchtime walk for May, so 30 Day Shred will get moved to June and I will alternate Yoga Meltdown with a few other workout DVDs.  I'm also incorporating a lot more  yoga as I need to make sure that I get some good stretching in after all those workouts.

One thing I'm really torn with is Weight Watchers.  More and more I feel like my idea of what's healthy diverges with Weight Watchers.  I'm still going to the meetings for the accountability and the friends I have there, but 45 bucks a month is a lot to pay for friendship. 

So here's where I diverge with Weight Watchers.  1) Weight Watchers seems to be, at its heart, a low carb, low fat diet.  I believe that eating MORE heart healthy fats trigger your satiety points and in turn you eat less.  2) Weight Watchers allows unlimited 'free' fruits and vegetables.  These foods are not without calories and they should all 'cost' something. 3) (Most importantly to me) Weight Watchers sells a ton of nutritionally void processed crap, both at your local supermarket and in the front of their meeting locations.  It's literally not possible for me to disagree with that more.  That kind of stuff TRIGGERS more overeating in people like me.  I feel like the moment they hitched their wagon to that kind of stuff, they should have re-evaluated if 'healthy' was their prime objective.

I can't tell you how many of the meetings I have attended over the years where I hear someone talk about hacking a recipe, driving down the points value for some junk food by adding fiber one to it.  STOP ADDING FIBER TO SHIT AND JUST EAT REAL FOOD.  So I'm struggling with that and trying to formulate a plan where I leave Weight Watchers and keep up my health living journey.

I'm not convinced I am strong enough to go it alone yet... But I bet I can sort something out.

I'm going to try to check in more in this space and keep you all informed about what I'm up to.  I'm still here, still plugging away. 

Be well, everyone.