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.
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.
Before - Day Zero
