Advice Requires 1% of your DV of Sodium

This has been quite the interesting week. Since President Obama is footing the bill for my BCP nowadays, I've gone back to the generic which gave me a bit of a change when it came to dealing with PMS. Usually I get a nice 1-2 pound weight loss (the only one I get) when I start the placebo pills, but this week, not so much. I felt seriously huge most of the week and couldn't physically shove enough chocolate down my gullet. Blah. But that's over now and yesterday I had a super healthy day. It helped that I didn't leave the house.

So this morning I got a pleasant surprise. 132.9. I hadn't even seen anything in the 133's yet! I'm sure I'll see that tomorrow. That's an official 84 pounds down. Have to admit, it's starting to lose its specialness. I've maintained a weight below my goal for 5 months now and I want to be honest and say that I'm really scared of true maintenance. There's a sick desire in me to see 129 lbs. Now, don't forget, I'm only 5 foot 4, so today I have a BMI of 22.8. Being 129 pounds is only a BMI of 22.1 (I won't go into how BMI is a flawed measure because it doesn't take body fat into account and all that jazz, but for the sake of combating “don't lose too much weight, Katie” I'm going with it). That's perfectly normal. It's so strange for me to even be considering the fact that I could ever be “under” weight. I don't think it's possible, really.

I shoved a cupcake in my mouth on Valentine's Day while screaming, “I eat 1200 calories a day... don't judge me!” :P

For exercise this week I spent most of it alternating between Abs and Yoga before starting 30 Day Shred yesterday. The Ab workout I chose was Jillian's Killer Abs which is a really interesting DVD. If you've never done a Jillian workout and you're looking for one, DO NOT pick this one first. She's really nice... really really nice. And it doesn't motivate me. I like when she screams for me not to stop because usually, she starts screaming about the time that I start wanting to slow down. BUT that said, I really enjoy that workout. Burn about 150 calories doing mostly ab exercises (there's a few cardio intervals too).

I'm two workouts in to 30 Day Shred and after graduating from Ripped in 30, I find myself doing the “bad ass” version of 30 Day Shred. My first workout was kind of... *gulp*... EASY. It's because the cardio portions are all enjoyable moves. Jumping Jacks. Butt Kicks. Punches. Jump Ropes. Nothing too hard to handle. My second time through, I did my butt kicks holding a 7 lb weight to try to make it harder. I did jumping jacks at double time. I do the hard versions of the ab workouts. I'm pretty freaking psyched that I can do it... and that I feel I have to.

I had an idea for today's blog post that revolved around my monthly magazine fix. I threw out a question/answer scenario on Facebook and got an interesting question that sort of melds together with my original idea. So today we're going to talk about advice. Advice and how you usually have to take all of it with a grain of salt.

Thank you, Internet, for enlightening me as to the origin of the phrase “with a grain of salt.” Turns out the Latin word for salt is the same as the word for wit. “Cum grano salis” then could mean “with a grain of wit.” You have to have your wits about you when it comes to advice. You know what's right for you. And you do know what's right... you just might not follow it every day. You know fast food is bad for you. You have eyes. You can read nutrition facts and see that when one meal is over 2000 calories that's probably not going to help you lose weight, considering you do eat two other meals during the day. It's hard when things are written down. It's hard when people are telling you that Item X is the right thing for you to consume and then you're finding that it's making you unsuccessful.

The question posed to me was, “it takes 30 days to set a habit, but how do you make it past day 2?”

That's a question that I could talk about forever but I could never really answer. Because the second day into forming a new lifestyle, that's entirely up to you. I can give advice and tips and share my own experiences as to how it works, but it boils down to your ability to change. Your desire to change. And if you wake up Day 2 and consume 4000 calories and feel miserable and blow off exercising. And then you wake up Day 3 and do the same... you're not ready. Either you're not ready to change or you're changing too much too fast. And that really is okay. Just don't be discouraged by the results you're not getting by the work you're not doing.

Right now I'm ankle deep in my monthly magazine fix. I subscribe to Cooking Light, Weight Watchers, Eating Well and Whole Living. I pick up Runner's World and Women's Health off the shelf at the grocery. I love magazines. I love the pictures of food (food porn) and I love the recipes. I like reading all the different types of advice they give and sometimes I'll get enlightened to new products or something cool to try out. But it's interesting to see their advertisements. What the magazine is saying in the articles vs. what they're saying to you in the ads.

Weight Watchers has the weirdest combination of ads. The articles as well as conversations in Weight Watchers meetings (remember, I participated in Weight Watchers 3 times. It worked for me to a point, but I couldn't get to goal on their program) preach the fact that you can “have what you want” on the Weight Watchers program. This drives me insane.

Sure. It's a points system, just like counting calories is essentially a “points” system where I'm eating 1200 “points” per day. If I had 1200 calories in cupcakes and that's all that I ate today, chances are I would lose weight because mathematically, calories in and calories out, that would work. What members forget is that you CAN NOT “have what you want.” You can have what you want after you have met all of your nutritional needs for the day. It's stated in the handbook... but everyone overlooks that awful part (myself included)

Those extra points you have or the “weekly” points, those are only supposed to be used after you've had your daily amounts of proteins, vegetables, fruits, low fat dairy, etc. I feel that allowing you those extra points is what sets you up for failure. You're essentially getting a free pass to “cheat.” At least if you're going to eat a dessert or something you don't normally eat, don't view it as “I can have it.” It's “I want it, and that's that” and then just suffer the caloric consequences. You're not going to spontaneously combust because you ate too many calories. But you need to remember that you went over yesterday so you don't do it tomorrow.

The ads in WW magazine are for snacks. Talk at the meetings are about low calorie, processed, boxed snacks. There are also ads for plus sized clothing and diabetes medication. Weight Watchers knows the people that are reading the magazine. There are THREE ads for THREE different insulin injections. Don't get me wrong, plenty of people are successful on Weight Watchers, but it's because they're following the program correctly. I seriously doubt Jennifer Hudson eats Nutri-Grain bars and drinks Crystal Light. Those things don't make for a healthy lifestyle. Eating your points in food with a longer shelf life than you isn't helping.

That makes me wonder then what part of the advice you're supposed to take seriously. They're trying to sell you something. And that's one reason why I could never be a “lifestyle coach” because I'm not into selling anyone anything. I like trying all different things. I don't want to endorse anything. There's tons of things that I like and that I would recommend, but you shouldn't base your diet around it. So Weight Watchers has the program they are selling and they have the food they are selling. Even in the WW meetings they tell you to limit the number of frozen dinners (Smart Ones) you eat because they're full of sodium. Sodium retains water in your body and that magic number you're watching on the scale isn't going to go down as quickly.

Back to the question... how do you get past Day 2 of creating a new habit? Learn to tell yourself what to do. There's advertisements and bloggers and magazines and meetings and all of these other people telling you what to do. Learn to discipline yourself. It's okay to deny yourself processed foods. It's okay to deny yourself soda and candy. You will not die without it, though it might feel like it but that's because it's tasty and we're all addicted. Be disciplined enough to create a plan and stick with it.

Here's some examples of how I “discipline myself” with my fitness plan. I've got my glass white board from IKEA that I'm keeping track of my 30 Day Shred workouts on. Every time I complete one, I'll mark it off. This gives me an instant visual of my progress. I've also got a separate calendar where I'm looking at the longer term, which days I'll workout and which days will be a rest day. I pick my rest days based on the fact that I have stuff to do and it would work best for me to rest on those days. By making a calendar and keeping track of my workouts, I'm making an appointment with myself to work on fitness. I'm telling myself that it is a priority and that I will make time for it.

You're bombarded with advice doing workout videos too. To paraphrase Jillian in Level 1 of 30 Day Shred, we are told to change our lives by “just taking the stairs” and those are words that lead to a world of lethargy. You have the ability to work out and push yourself. We chose to listen to the advice that is easy. It's easy to take the stairs and then go home and sit on the couch the rest of the night. It's easy to eat “what you want” just less of it.

I discipline myself with the stuff I eat starting at what I bring home from the grocery. I don't bring home anything I shouldn't eat. I can get what I shouldn't eat at a restaurant. Then they can keep the rest of the ingredients and I can have just my share. If I bring home something I shouldn't have, one of two things happens. Either it sits there, unopened, because I know when I open it I'm going to just suck it down... or I open it and I suck it down. “Bad” things don't last too long at Katie's house.

There's no end to this conversation. It takes willpower. Nothing comes easy and really, do you want it to? At the end of the day, when you go to bed well nourished, coming off the high of getting in a good workout, knowing that you took charge of your life and took charge of your health, wouldn't it make it cheap if it was easy? Be proud of today and let that influence your tomorrow.

In food... this week I did eat healthy as I usually do. I just ate a bunch of candy. My uterus required candy and I gave in and ate the candy. Big deal. It's over now and I'm past it.

Those Skinny Strawberry and Chocolate Chip muffins that I made last week were FABULOUS and I ate them for my Second Breakfasts split open, reheated in the microwave, and then I spread 1 Tbsp of peanut butter split across the four pieces. I've always been afraid of all things PB&J but if this is what PB&J tastes like, sign me up! Except eating fruit rather than jelly is probably better...

I tried a little bit of a lower calorie alternative to my normal peanut butter and banana oatmeal. I crushed up 10 almonds and stirred that into my oatmeal and then put in my banana. It was really tasty! Not as decadent as the peanut butter being that it's all gooey and delicious, but this was a fun, new what to eat it. Always looking for new ways...

 

And then there were salads. And toward the end of the week when I ran out of my salmon and pulled pork, I started throwing cottage cheese into my salad and it was so delicious. 

 I ate my weight in strawberries this week, since for Valentine's Day dinner, I made chocolate covered strawberries. These are actually pretty low in calories for having chocolate. It's about 70 calories for a serving of the melting chocolate and then strawberries are about 15 calories a piece, give or take.

The rest of Valentine's Day dinner was so tasty. I made filet mignon with shrimp, asparagus and rice. I didn't eat any rice, I mainly made it so that my handsome gentleman had enough to eat. I did way too much internet research to cook those steaks because I wanted them to come out tasty. How I ended up cooking them was I marinaded them for a day with olive oil and soy sauce. I pan seared them 4 minutes on each side in my all-stainless steel skillet, then threw the skillet in the oven on 450 for about 7-8 minutes. I transferred them to a plate and covered it with foil while I got the rest of the food finished and plated. They were so good. Rare and delicious. Couldn't have been happier. He seemed to enjoy it too ;)

I can't remember if I mentioned the Fiber One stuff that I tried last week. I did pick up a box of the Fiber One Chocolate 80 Calorie Cereal because I was so into chocolate last week. It's not terrible. It's not delicious, but it's chocolatey and full of fiber, so go for it. It does turn the milk into a delicious chocolate milk, so that's fun. Fiber One Protein Bars, I had the Caramel Nut and it felt a little like eating a Snickers. It was pretty good. At least you get some fiber eating the chocolate.

I also tried Shredded Mini-Wheats in Cinnamon Roll flavor. They're MINI!!! It's super cute! And they were tasty and not much different in stats as the normal shredded mini wheats, which I love.

Lastly to report this week is I got it into my brain to play around in Crane Pose last night. I felt myself tipping too far forward, so to save my glasses-wearing-face, I slammed my knees down. I laid on the floor for a while, doing that Peter Griffin “hissing” sound over and over. It hurt. And now I have two super awesome knots on my knees. They're not too bruised yet, but my knees stay bruised for the most part because they're so bony, so anything I do on the knees (stay mature, people) gives me pretty, purple splotches.

I have tomorrow off for President's Day, so maybe there'll be a run in my future (it's been super cold, super windy, and oh yea, 17 inches of snow WHAT?). Haven't ran in 2 weeks...