Staying Motivated

After four years of watching what I eat, of successes, and hardships... you don't know how many times I sit back and wish I could just let go. I'll think about a dessert buffet. Or I'll play a game with myself, a game I've played so many times when I was fatter... sort of a “Anywhere But Here” game but involving food. I think, “If I could eat anything right now, what would it be?” Luckily for me, when I play this game now, there are two things that keep me from falling face first into an industrial vat of calories.

One: The thing that I would eat if I could eat anything is currently 1000 miles away. I lost a lot of weight living back home in Kentucky, but I'm not going to lie... it is SO much easier to lose weight in New Hampshire. I could give you twenty reasons right now: Arbys, Qdoba, Chick-fil-A, Tumbleweed, Mark's Feed Store, Louisville Pizza Company, Jumbo Buffet, Schlotzsky's Deli, Buffalo Wild Wings, Moby Dick, Captain D's, White Castle, O'Charley's, Graeter's, El Nopal, Penn Station, Beef O'Brady's, Fazoli's, Waffle House... STEAK N SHAKE!!! The only one of these that I don't have to drive at least 25 minutes for is Arby's and that's a recent phenomenon... and it's in the mall... which me and my wallet attempt not to frequent too often. The only few I could get would be Qdoba, Chick-Fil-A and Buffalo Wild Wings, but those take too much driving to make it a habit.

Two: I think about food and I think about binging and I can feel what it will do to me before I even do it. I almost get sick to my stomach. I get flashes of heart burn and soreness... visions of being uncomfortable. It's the reason I order smalls now of most everything. I know it won't all fit. If I don't need it, I shouldn't get it.

My own willpower has grown exponentially over the past 4 years. Sitting here right now, I could definitely go for some snacks. But I think about how I already finished logging all of my food for the day... and how MyFitnessPal gave me my little “if everyday were like today” 5 week estimate... that I've stuck with water for the rest of the evening.

After so long... after this becomes a lifestyle and it gets boring and becomes routine, how do we find it in ourselves to stay motivated? It could be so much easier to just live life, eat what you want, and not worry about fitting exercise in to the busy work week. Why keep going? Let's talk about some motivators:

The before picture.

I went on a picture untagging sweep on my Facebook when I got down to 180. There's no fat-Katie pictures to be found (well, except for a couple from a friend's wedding, but I had to use safety pins to keep that dress from falling down, so I was working on it...). Let's check out some motivating photos, shall we? Here's what I could look like again if I stopped... 

Those make me want to cry. (Don't ever tell yourself you can't do it. It will feel like it takes forever and it should take forever. Losing it slow and healthy is good).

Now let's see how far we've come...

And miles to go before I sleep.

As if that isn't enough, what else motivates me? New recipes. I have already established that I love pictures of food... and healthy eating magazines are wonderful things. I rarely make something twice because I flood myself with new recipes, some of which I will share with you later. I have to keep it interesting. I have to try new things. I have to find new ways of cooking something, something faster, something healthier, something tastier than the thing before it. Because when I stop... I'm calling out for pizza because I'm burned out. I can't get bored. No matter how much this needs to be second nature, I've got to keep the fire burning between me and getting healthy. Even now, I get tired of cooking. If I've done a lot of cooking for a few weeks in a row, I'm filling my fridge with the stuff for salads and quick meals that don't take as much effort. Then I can go back to cooking once I've had the opportunity to miss it.

What motivates me to keep exercising? This one is tough. I went through a couple week stretch there with the Vitamin D deficiency that the only exercise I was imbibing in was rigorous sessions of the Horizontal Mambo. (You can laugh. It was supposed to be funny). And to get out of that exercise-is-boring rut, I stopped going to the gym. Of course my membership doesn't expire until August, but I have no desire to go. I was tired of running on the hamster wheel. So I changed. And I started ballet class and I downloaded “Couch to 5k” and took myself out of the endless loop of watching one wall, exercise in, exercise out... and now I find myself discovering more about the city I live in and taking to the streets and not being afraid if anyone can see me jiggle.

My relationship with exercise has been interesting over the past 4 years and I've gone through many changes. The first thing I did was Dance Dance Revolution. And I'd do it for 40-60 minutes a night. This was when I was first doing Weight Watchers. And I'd just go... and I'd slip my brain into a zone where I was imagining I was anywhere but where I was. Benefits of a first floor apartment.

Then came the divorce. And he got custody of most of the video games because honestly, I just wasn't that into it. Nor was I feeling very into material possessions at that point. My life was what I wanted and so long as I left with that, I was happy. In an attempt to keep losing weight I did a combination of Wii Fit and EA Active. EA Active is actually really challenging, especially if you're not the most fit person in the world. Lots of using your own body weight as resistance type of exercising. Lots of lunges. Squats. I weighed about 184 lbs then, but my buns were awesome! Not as awesome as they are right now... but you know, you have to start somewhere.

Next I moved to New Hampshire and exercising STOPPED. Dead. Nothing. And I gained weight again. Funny how exerting energy is directly correlated to losing weight. How novel.

I started slow. I lost about 15 pounds again and then introduced exercise back into the mix. As you'll probably notice, much of my early exercise was in the comfort and seclusion of my own home. I never, ever, ever, ever, ever thought I'd ever go to a gym. I didn't want anyone to see me. I got into yoga, aerobics videos... and then I tried the gym. Signed up for the Y. Started weight training and killing the elliptical machine.

And then the Mono. And all that stopped until this past August when I signed back up for the gym and slowly got myself up to where I am now. Running, on average, 7.5 miles a week, ballet once a week, and then slowly getting myself back into yoga. I was very pleased back when I could do Downward Dog with my heels to the floor. But now I've noticed that since my legs are so much stronger from all the running up and down hill, I can do balancing poses with such ease now. Tree pose is almost boring. I could stand there for hours.

I've changed my ways of eating at times too. I tried being Vegan for about a week somewhere along the line. I tried cutting down dairy and moving to soy based yogurts and milk. I think about “fad” dieting and though I know that it would never keep someone healthy and fit for the long haul, it is a very tempting thing when you're 7 pounds away from goal and Special K tells you you can lose up to 6 pounds in two weeks by eating nothing but artificial sweetener pumped carb thingies. And a sensible dinner.

So rather than prescribe to a diet plan, while surfing Pinterest I came across this post from a weight loss/fitness blog. 21 Day No Junk Food Challenge.

I can't see how this could be a bad thing.

The thing I like the most about this is not only do we have clear, concise rules on what you're supposed to cut out... but there's 21 days worth of journal prompts to reflect on what you're doing. That makes each day its own little triumph. And when you want that piece of candy, you can write about it instead. I love that idea. So I've decided that today I will start this challenge. Today being Sunday, which I am deceiving us all by writing most of this Saturday night due to insomnia from having taken a nap today... So starting 5-13-12 with the last day of the challenge taking place the day after I run my first 5k. I'm thinking this could be a fun way to maybe boost myself a little bit.

Here's what I can't have: Chocolate. Candy. Cookies. Cake. Donuts. Muffins. Pastries. White bread. Chips. Fast Food. Peanut Butter. Ice Cream.

I only have 3 of those things even in my house. Cookies. Ice Cream. Peanut Butter. I'm not worried about this working. The thing I need to focus on is the candy. There's candy at work and I eat a little every day. I need to focus my will power and eat something else. Peanut Butter will be hard too, since I like it with apple slices and it's really good with pretzels too. But I had a friend once that was a runner and she did all kinds of running but couldn't lose weight. We figured it out that it was the half a jar of peanut butter that she'd eat afterward. Maybe a little break from the PB will be good for me.

I'll share my reflections on the daily prompts at the end of the first, second and third week.

You know... as I was leaving my ex husband, he said to me that I would never find a relationship that I could commit to “forever” because I would just get bored. That I would be alone because of my love of change. I think my approach to love is the same as my approach to weight loss and to food. I've got to want it. I've got to miss it. And I've got to see a future where it makes me better. It's not so hard to find. But I guess it's easy to be bitter when you're not meeting such stringent expectations.

I was really motivated to create new foods this week. And what made me happy is I did so with very few recipes, just kind of decided to put some things together. I made a variation on the recipe I posted back in February. This time I used Uncle Ben's Cajun rice and put some paprika on my shrimp. Gave it a slight jambalaya feel.

The most important thing that I did differently this time though was that I baked the shrimp, I didn't pan fry them. This made this recipe a gazillion times easier. I baked them at 425 degrees for 7 minutes. Perfectly done. Then, since the rice is cooked already, I just mixed everything up in a bowl, covered it, and took it in for lunch the next day. Easy. I'm really into baking things. Bacon. Eggs. Shrimp. I just have to make sure to set a timer so I don't forget it's in there, haha.

 

Next up, I had an avocado that I bought over the weekend and it 

was getting so soft and I was afraid of it going bad. I had a very modest day on Thursday as far as food was concerned, so blowing 600 calories on dinner was sort of delightful. Here's what I did:

1 serving pasta

1 avocado, diced

4 slices Oscar Meyer precooked bacon, torn to bite sized pieces

1 tsp olive oil

salt and pepper

This was so good. And filling. And throwing it together was nice.

Lastly, I made dinner for my wonderful boyfriend Friday night. Pork and Shiitake Mushroom Stir-Fry over Rice with Green Beans. I don't have a picture of it because, frankly, that was the last thing on my mind with a handsome man in my kitchen telling me how good my dinner smelled. My domesticity was all a-twitter.

The only recipe I used for this was my marinade because I'm of the opinion that marinades rate right up there with baking; there's a chemistry to it and I should follow the directions. Here's the marinade I use for pork tenderloin:

2 Tbsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp hoison sauce (this is semi-optional. I've forgotten it before and it still went well)

1 Tbsp dark brown sugar

1 Tbsp oil

1 ½ tsp honey

½ tsp garlic powder (or pop in a garlic clove)

½ tsp cinnamon

Just pop all of those ingredients in a gallon ziploc bag and let your pork swim in that for 6-8 hours or overnight. I always put it to marinade before work and then it's ready for when I get home.

My favorite thing about this marinade is the way the honey and sugar caramelize on the outside of the pork when you throw it in a pan. Even when I bake a pork tenderloin, I always start out browning it on each side for 3-4 minutes in a hot, stainless steel pan (no Teflon for this task, my friends). I started my stir fry in the same fashion, wanting the same effect.

For this dish, I used the following:

1 marinaded pork tenderloin, about 1 lb

1 pkg shiitake mushrooms

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp hoison sauce

1 grated garlic clove

After pan searing the outside of the roast, 3-4 minutes on each side, I moved it to a plate to rest for a few minutes to retain its juiciness. While that rests, mix together the soy sauce, hoison sauce and garlic in a small bowl. Set this aside. Cut up the pork tenderloin into bite sized pieces. This roast will be obviously undercooked at this time. That's okay, we're going to cook it some more. Once cut up, put the pork back in the pan and cook until the pink/red disappears from all sides of your pork (I wasn't timing it. Seriously. Hot guy in kitchen).

Dump your mushrooms into the pan and continue stirring until they're warmed through and a little softer than when you started. Finally, dump in your sauce and combine everything well.

Serve over white rice or whatever type of carbohydrate you're feeling at the time. I still have some leftovers in the fridge. Jealous?

An easy cooking week. I tried polenta for the first time this week and it was tasty. I feel like I ate so much food... but without jinxing myself, I have a feeling that my plateau is coming to an end. I am back in the realm of 152 lbs. Looks like my plateau was approximately 42 miles from edge to edge, because that's how many miles I've clocked in my nearly 6 full weeks of “Couch to 5k.” I've lost an inch in my hips. Unfortunately, I've also lost an inch in my bust (sad face). Waist is still the same.

I'll get there. I'm excited to see something like 149.9... but I'll get there. Slow and steady wins the race and all that.