Getting back on the wagon

Two years ago I decided to make a commitment to my body. To become more conscience of what I eat, exercise more, and be all around healthier. I began the P90X home exercise routine and in three month's time I saw a great difference in my appearance. I also felt, probably the best I have ever felt in my life.

Fast forward to summer 2011, I fell off the wagon. The perception that I could take some time off from the diet and exercise regimen I had worked so hard to make a routine and be able to pick up where I left off was an illusion. I began eating whatever I wanted, still conscience of what is healthy and what isn't. I stopped exercising with the excuse that it was too warm to exercise.

Not only is it safe to say that I haven't gotten back on that wagon, but that wagon is far from view at this point. So here I am, January 2013, 20 pounds heavier than I was last time I posted a blog. Also the heaviest I've ever been in my life. And no to mention completely unhappy with my body and how I've been treating it. Well no more!! It's time to chase that wagon and back on it.

I could be wrong, but posting a blog about my progress may have helped in some way, so starting today I'll post little things here and there about my food choices, my exercise routine, and of course my progress. Well, here goes nothing...

Yummm!

I'm the pickiest eater ever so forcing myself to eat healthier was definitely not an easy task. Luckily I came across EatingWell.com. It's jam packed with great recipes for practially anything you can think or to every day dishes with a slight moderation. You can pick from categories like "Easy recipes for two" or "Cheap quick dinners" to searching specific ingredients. Just check out the website and you'll see how awesome it is.

I've had to chance, or courage, to make a couple of dishes off of the website (with many more pending ha ha) and I just wanted to share with you my absolute favorite so far. Gnocchi with zucchini ribbons. It's not only delicious it's also low in calories and super easy to make! I rave about this dish to anyone who will listen. Until I find another favotire, this is my numero uno!

I'll keep you posted on any other "delicious-nesses" I come across :)

Double stuffed

Oh holidays. You can't live with them and you can't live without them... A dieter's nightmare. How on Earth are you supposed to be eating well portioned, healthy meals when there's a plethora of yummy, sodium and calorie filled goodness less than an arm's length away from you at the dinner table? It's rough, I tell you. Now, I don't consider myself to be on a diet, per say, it's more of a lifestyle adjustment. I've never seen holidays as an issue, but since my New Year's resolution I've begun to see where I've gone wrong. lol Luckily, I've only encountered 2 holidays before realizing, "Hey, you've got to think this through. This is just the beginning of the year."

Easter and Mother's day, two of the holidays which require a family meal, are the only ones that have come and gone thus far. With, now, two family dinners to attend, mine and Matt's family, I'll have to come up with a master plan so that my work thus far can escape unscathed. The thought of holidays and the sheer amount of food normally consumed at these events didn't really sink in until I was 2 seconds away from unbuttoning my jeans during dinner #2 this past Sunday. FAIL We had gone over to my parents' house for a late brunch (called almoço in Brazil) and since we sat down to eat later than scheduled I had worked up quite an appetite. As I always do when I'm famished, I filled my plate with a little bit of everything there was to eat. To top it all off I even had desert. Before I could even finish stuffing my face with the "smallest" portions of desert my mom served me, Matt informed me that his family was just waiting for us to arrive in order to go out to dinner. Eeekk! I shoved the 2 remaining pieces of flan left on my plate and we said our good-bye's.

The ride over to the buffet where we were meeting them is approximately 30 minutes so I took some refuge in the thought that I would be able to digest a portion of the food I had just consumed. Even if it was only 5% of it. ha ha. Unfortunately 5% turned out to be diddly-squat! I placed what would probably hold the world record as the smallest amount of food ever consumed at a buffet on my plate, I made my way to the table and consumed it ever so slowly. I'm still quite unsure how I managed to then squeeze in some dessert. I must have had a serious sweet tooth that day. That day was the closest I've been to a food induced coma in a while. I would rather not do it again, though. ha ha

The following day I woke up with a heavy conscience as well as a heavy gut so I decided to pop in the Turbo Fire 30 minute workout. Since this is my last week of P90X it's just a recovery week and quite frankly wouldn't give me the burn that I'd like. When I got home at night I put in another Turbo Fire workout video. I think I managed to burn off at least 70% of the calories I ate the day before. Yikes!

So armed with this experience I will now have an idea of what I need to work on for the holidays throughout the rest of the year.
#1 MODERATION: if I choose to eat a little bit of everything I'll have to scale down on the portions of each.
#2 Do not place food on the plate while hungry: I'll be sure to regret every bite of it come the second dinner.
#3 Digestion: I'll have to realize when it's time to stop eating my first meal in order to fit the second one just a few hours later.
Those are my rules so far. I can't think of any more right now, especially with my stomach growling. :-/

In conclusion... Holidays are the dieter's kryptonite! ha ha

Aw, snap!

Here it is folks, my 60 day progress photos:





Truthfully I'm surprised by the difference from day 1 until now. Let's hope that the progress continues in this manner and not in the other direction. Haha

“If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you'll achieve the same results.” -Anthony Robbins

Oops!

I'm not entirely proud of the past 1 1/2 - 2 weeks. Not only have I not been exercising in the morning, but I skip exercises and never "get around" to doing them. To make matters worse, I haven't been eating well at all. I've been indulging in pretty much anything I'd like. I'm sure this will be a major setback when it comes time to getting back on the scale. And speaking of which... last week, Thursday, I decided to weigh myself and see if I've gained any weight as a result of my piss poor judgement. Luckily, I didn't gaing anything, but I also didn't really lose any weight either.

Coming into this exercise and new outlook on food consumption I knew that I would lose weight. I never imagined I would lose as much as I did and so quickly, though. I quickly realized that at one point I would stop losing weight. As I've seen happen in many episodes of "The Biggest Loser" and from previous knowledge of weight loss in general. At a certain point your weight loss begins to dwindle and seeing as how I'm of a small build I knew that my weight loss would cease all together. Which, in truth, is fine for me. Losing 8 lbs has made me realize that my body is fine just the way it is. Right now. I don't need to lose more weight, but definitely not gain any more. I've put all the hard work from the past 60+ days in jepordy due to my gluttony.

What makes matters worse is that my bad decisions in the past week haven't really affected me emotionally. I'm so close to the end of P90X and it almost seems like I've already given up. I've become content, not happy, with the results and in a way I'm kind of saying to myself, "Ok, you've done enough. This is good enough." But if I plan to start an all new workout regimen after my trip to Punta Cana I need to maintain the workout mind set. Not to mention that Warrior Dash is 11 days away! Oh, and it's also the same day as my birthday party. I hope not to get too seriously injured that I will be prevented to enjoying the night :( I guess that means I need to shape up, no pun intended. Put my laziness aside and stop indulging in salty, fatty foods.

Maybe it's the warm weather. Sweating bullets at home with no fan or air conditioning isn't quite appealing. I don't know. I may just be looking for excuses to give up. It's always easier to just give up. But I've come too far in the program to just give up now. *sigh*

I'm not looking forward to the photos this week, but I'll put them up anyway. Who knows, they may be a reality check . If I visibly gained weight in them it'll probably get me back on track for the next 2 weeks. I sure hope so...

Guilty

This past weekend I feel like I took a step back with my eating habits. Matt and I joined a few of our friends in Atlantic City to celebrate a few birthdays and with that... a lot of drinking was involved. I'm not entirely concerned with what or how much I drank, though I know alcohol and it's mixers weigh heavily on the calorie count as well as the sugar intake. I'm more worried about the 1/2 pepperoni pizza and breadsticks I ate for dinner one day. Immediately after I put the pizza in my mouth all I could taste was the saltiness and even more so with the breadsticks. It almost seemed as if they were dropped in a vat of salt prior to baking them. I knew, though, that I needed to get something in my stomach prior to drinking in order to prevent myself from becoming sick by the end of the night. I also knew that the remaining pieces of pizza and breadsticks would become a late night snack once the drinking and partying had stopped. Even with a heavy conscious I proceeded to eat away.

This got me thinking... was I really feeling that guilty about overly indulging? Or was it just the mind set that I've been in for the past 60+ days. Was my need to constantly eat healthy becoming an obsession? Quite honestly I think it may be a little bit of both, but for the most part I believe it's the fact that I've been striving to incorporate healthy foods in every meal. I'm not looking to become some health fanatic that only eats everything low calorie, organic, non fat, etc... That's not realistic to me. I know I'll indulge every now and again. It's only natural. I don't feel I'm that unhealthy that I need to cut out all the sugar and salt from my diet. It's just a matter of reducing the unhealthy ingredients that I consume. I am far from consuming the daily recommended amounts of vegetables, fruits, dairy (to name a few) in every meal. I just tend to beat myself up when I overindulge because I know I could have gone without eating that extra bite of chicken parm or the last slice of pizza. When I voice my lamentation to my boyfriend I normally get a response like, "Shut up, you're doing great." Haha After he jokingly chastises me, of course. And that's what brings me back to reality.

I am doing great! I've lost 8+ lbs thus far. I am eating healthier, exercising more, being more conscious of the food I eat, and best of all learning new things about nutrition and exercise. Matt's right. I don't need to beat myself up into a figurative bloody pulp just because I ate a highly caloric burrito. I need to work it off and move on. I'm only human and I'm going to make mistakes and eat something I shouldn't, but as long as I'm aware of it and try to keep the overindulgence to a minimum I'll be fine. Until the doctor tells me that I absolutely have to cut out sugar, for example, it's really not necessary. I mean, I know it's not good for you, but if consuming in moderation it becomes less detrimental to your health. And that's not a bad thing, right? Or am I just really giving myself a pep talk and a slew of excuses? Hmm... food for thought.

In no way, shape or form am I giving myself a "free pass" to eat unhealthy foods with the thought that "I'll just work it out later" or that "I'm only human I'll make mistakes." That isn't the case at all. I'm just trying to be a little bit more realistic about things. I'm very a picky eater still, always have been, which makes it difficult to expand my options during meals. All I can say is that I'll do my best... and that would make Tony Horton proud. Haha! :)

"Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway." 

-Isabelle Holland 

A Race to the Finish

Last year my wonderful boyfriend, Matt, came to me with the idea of joining a race called the Warrior Dash.

This race isn't like a typical marathon or triathlon. It includes various obstacles along the route in the mountainous terrain of Windham Mountain (for our race in particular). These races are held all around the country and attract, mostly, the athletes and adventure enthusiasts. Well, I'm far from either of the two. Nonetheless I decided to join him and a few of our friends along for this new experience. The 3.23 mile race was grueling! The first half of the race was straight up a mountain and I was definitely not physically, and mentally, prepared for what lay ahead. Once we finished the uphill portion of the race and dove into the muddy waters of one of the obstacles I seemed to gain a 2nd wind. From that point on the race actually became fun! Over wooden planks, cargo nets, through clearings between trees, downhill, and crawling through a mud pit underneath rows of barbed wire we trudged on and completed the race. The adrenaline rush that it gave was great. Now, I didn't anticipate finishing in good time at all and luckily Matt stayed by my side the whole time cheering me on. Once the race was complete and we all got out of our muddy clothes and sat down for our free beer, I knew that I would be doing this again the following year.

This year I've come across at least 6 different races similar in style to the Warrior Dash. Some options were discarded due to the proximity in dates to other races. Others were discarded due to me valuing my life (too extreme for me at this point) haha. In my mind I believed that I would only be entering in 2 races this year. Though I'm in the process of completing P90X I'm not quite sure I'm physically fit to compete alongside Matt, who has more cardiovascular strength than me. But now with 4 different race possibilities I think that's going to have to change. Looks like I'll have to lace up my running shoes and start training.

The earliest race falls on the day I've decided to celebrate my birthday. (This should be interesting) The Metro Dash has more obstacles incorporated into this event (30) as opposed to the amount in Warrior Dash (12). It won't be held in any "rough terrain" either. So it seems to me that this event may be more copasetic with all resistance training and physical endurance I've gotten out of P90X thus far. Or at least I hope. With less than a month to go 'till this event I've really got to get the ball rolling if I wish to survive this.

The event following the Metro Dash is the Spartan Race. I'll have 3 weeks to try and heal any possible wounds obtained in Metro Dash as well as build up some cardiovascular resistance. This race is comparable to Warrior Dash in the amount of obstacles, miles, and terrain. With a smaller amount of obstacles incorporated into the race, the actual running time increases. :Sigh:

The 3rd race is, to my felicity, more than a month away from the Spartan Race. Warrior Dash 2011
in good ol' Windham Mtn, we shall meet again. Seeing as how I'll have 2 other races under my belt this year I'll hope to beat my time the previous year. This time, though, I won't have my lovely Matt cheering me on. He also wishes to do better than his time the previous year and I'd only hold him back. So I will be cheering him on from the back of the pack, unless I manage to keep up with him. haha :) I've recruited a few friends along for this journey which should be a great experience!

The 4th and last race is still up in the air. We haven't fully committed to this one because it's more of a scavenger hunt. The Great Urban Race is held in urban locations (i.e. Manhattan) and you and your teammate are given a paper with clues that will lead you to a location where you would, upon deciphering the clue, would lead you to another location. The first few teams to make it to the finish line with all the completed clues win monetary prizes, which is also different from any of the other races.

As you can see this is a very ambitious goal I have set for myself. I hope not only to live up to my expectations, but also to surpass them. Fingers crossed and running sneakers on. It's training time! :)

**Many of these races are held for charitable causes.

Please check race listings near you and sign up for

a fun filled day of mud, sweat, and adrenaline**

 

"Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in" -Bill Bradley