praise the lord & pass the good nutrition ... my jeans fit better!

Just this morning I finally noticed my jeans are hanging a little looser. Not much. Just enough for me to notice. But also just enough for me to open up my brain to The Future Lindsay.

I was sucking in ... maybe a little.

I've been very happy to take on good habits for their own sake (and proud of myself, too). I have this idea that I want to set a preliminary weight goal of 115 (I'm about 124 now). I know I want to be stronger and stand up straighter.

But those goals have felt far off and detached. All the work I've been doing for nearly two months has made me feel *good*, but in only barely-discernible ways.

Which has suggested to me a homeostasis. Healthfulness but little change otherwise.

And then Boom. Bam. Jeans are loose! Inside my brain, something like this is happening "I could be trim! Lean! Maybe I'll wear bikinis, like, ALL summer. I'll have muscles. Other people will be able to see them. No tummy roll? REALLY? Maybe! Just maybe!"

I'm not on some get-skinny rampage now. It's just that I suddenly feel like all this healthfulness might also lead to a Lindsay I've never seen before. (I have weighed as little as 107 lbs., but I didn't get their with exercise. I was still flabby, with little muscle [which I didn't think was possible at 107? Apparently it is?].)

This Lindsay might look like an ... athlete? Like one of those cute yoga ladies? A gymnast (I *do* have trunk-y thighs)? I actually don't know. But I am totally stoked to find out.

And all because my jeans are a tiny bit loose! Who knew?

using charts & spreadsheets to track my health

Who doesn't know I love spreadsheets? NOBODY. That's who.

I've long created, used, abandoned and recreated Google spreadsheets to track my activity and food intake, but I've only recently (finally!) understood how to use Google's charting options to visualize the data. Which inspired me to go beyond the simple calories-in/calories-out tracking and start exploring my: heart rate, water intake, weight change and muscle/bone/fat/water percentages that I can borrow from our Homedics bathroom scale.

So how's about I just dive in and show you what I see everyday?

the charts

For the most part the charts I've included below display one week's worth of data (for the span between Feb. 28 and March 6).


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the mothership

Here are the raw numbers, which I fill in every day. I have some ideas for more data to add (a count of visits to the gym per week, separate tracking for bike rides, inch measurements to accompany my weight numbers, etc.), but for now this is giving me a lot of great analysis. A note: You'll notice I leave the heart rate/speed numbers blank on days I don't exercise, but I take the time to mark "0" calories on those days. When you see the visualization of those numbers later on I think you'll see why.


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daily water intake

Water! Simple and straightforward. I'm still trying to figure out the best volume of water to keep me properly hydrated every day. I've set a goal of 81 oz. for now (my Klean Kanteen is a 27 oz. bottle and to keep things simple, I aim to drink three of those a day, which brings me to 81 oz.).

I still feel thirsty, and wake up thirsty, so I don't know if I'm overdoing it, need more water, or need to examine something else in my diet. If I come to find that I need to increase or decrease my daily water goal, I'll adjust my chart accordingly.


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weekly points consumed

I already track my Weight Watchers points through my weightwatchers.com login, but I thought I may find some benefit one day (for some reason I have yet to determine) of having these numbers readily available in my charts.

Maybe one day I'll get curious about how my weekly activity performance compares with my overall food intake through that week? Or if my heart rate during exercise seems to spike on days I've consumed more points (or fewer)?

I really don't know yet, but the numbers are there to be crunched ...


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daily & weekly calories burned

I use this chart to keep an eye on my weekly goal for exertion: I'd love to burn 2,000 calories each week. You can see that in the week displayed here, I fell short of that goal.

(And regarding that "0" calories burned I mark on days I don't go to the gym: You can see how that "0" displays on my chart.)


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heart rate zones per workout

I need to further educate myself on what different heart rate zones mean for fitness, but some preliminary reading suggests that if I keep my heart rate in a lower (though elevated) range, I'll be in my "fat-burning" zone.

And that the further I push that heart rate the more it will push my body beyond that benefit and into ... I'm not sure. That's where I need to read more so I can understand what the higher exertion does for fitness training.

In the meantime, I've been trying to keep my heart rate in the first (teal) and second (green) heart rate zones (as determined by my smart heart rate monitor). And that pinky red you see in my earlier workouts? It's me nearly maxing out my heart rate before I started reading about healthy zones and how to approach aerobic training ...

(And regarding those nil data sets for days I don't work out: For this chart and the next, it would be funky to see "0" for my heart rate those days. I think it's more useful to mark progress from one workout day to the next, whenever it may fall.)


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overall heart rate & speed

And here's a big-picture look at my heart rate.

As far as I understand, heart rate is a good measure of overall health. What I do with this chart is keep an eye on my maximum and average heart rates for each workout, as well as the average speed for those workouts.

My thought? That putting those two numbers together will help build a more complete picture of wellness: If my heart rate goes down over time and my average speed goes up, then I'm getting in good shape.


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weight tracking

I had to do a little trickery here, as Google's charting seems to have a glitch: I can't set my X-axis to a number higher than "0."

Why do I want to adjust my X-axis? Because the narrower the range of numbers displayed, the greater the difference appears when I go up or down a pound.

What I discovered: I *can* set my X-axis at a number lower than "0." (Silly Google.)

So I've set the chart range to display between -130 lbs. and -114 lbs.

Which is a long way to explain why you see the line designating my goal weight (115 lbs.) hovering above my daily weigh-in line (which creeps *up* as I lose weight).

*Phew* Did you get all that?


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bathroom scale numbers

The number I'm most interested in here is my body fat percentage, which I would love to get down to 18 percent one day (which would mean me basically being an athlete and shifting my activity into high gear). Right now it's hovering around 28 percent.

I'd like to read up on healthy percentages for these other numbers. Right now, I'm around 52 percent water, 36 percent muscle mass and 3.5 percent bone mass.

A note about this chart: imagine that the walls of color you see are stacked one behind the other, rather than on top of one another. Which is why that little strip for muscle mass looks so tiny (36 percent), even though it's greater than the body fat (at 28 percent).

what does it all mean?

I'm trying to look at these numbers more in the spirit of scientific observation than fire-under-my-ass motivation.

I know I'm making good, healthy decisions. I know that my weight and various body percentage numbers will slowly approach a healthier range. I know my heart rate will slowly decrease as I get more fit.

But isn't it interesting to watch those things happen quantitatively? And couldn't these numbers be helpful to observe hiccups or to help me get in front of bad habits rearing their ugly heads?

I think so.

And I hope you think so, too. Because I plan to produce weekly updates using these charts. Maybe some monthly updates to analyze bigger shifts. And wouldn't it be great to see where these charts rest in one year?(!)

missing something ... protein?

I'm digging into this right now. I microwaved it for a minute and sprinkled it with sea salt. This modest portion of edamame (3 oz. / 0.5 cups) contains 12 g of protein.

Do you know why I care about how much protein this has?

Because I have been SLUGGISH lately. And today I hit my breaking point. (Come to think of it, about this time last week I met a similar breaking point ...) I found myself super drained, unable to focus, hungry, grumpy. And I mean this was on an "am I getting sick??" level.

No good reason! I had my morning exercise, my delicious oatmeal/fruit/honey/almond milk breakfast. I had my 12 oz. of coffee.

WHY THE HELL?

It was incredibly frustrating. And I continued to feel unwell after my (healthy!) lunch of homemade grain bread, hummus, veggies, granola bar.

On top of all this, I have this nagging feeling that my late-afternoon sleepies (which I experience nearly every day) are entirely avoidable ...

So I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

So I dug into the numbers behind my entire food intake for yesterday and found I'd consumed around 30 grams of protein.

*Ahem* That is not enough. (And this is where I really want to start reading serious, trustworthy, educational materials about nutrition and such, because all I can say is that) I've seen several references to recommendations from the Institute of Medicine that folks get about 0.8 grams of protein for every kilogram of body weight.

That would put me at 45 grams per day if I weren't active. (125 lbs. divided by 2.2 to get my weight in kilograms, by the way.) But when I add activity I should add protein, too.

This article on Health.com [ehh?] suggests that if I'm active, I should take my weight in pounds and multiply it by 0.6 to calculate my grams of protein per day. That brings me up to 75.

If that number seems a little steep, at least it suggests a range to guide me. And 30 does *not* fall between 45 and 75 grams of protein.

taking-action time

I'm going to forgo the gym tomorrow (seriously, I'm still quite tired), which kinda bums me out because I was looking forward to my second Body Pump class (have I mentioned that yet? I suppose not ... I went on Tuesday, I used the absolute smallest amount of weight possible and I *still* found myself struggling at times. It was great, of course).

I will eat a bean and egg breakfast (overkill?).

And I think it's about time for me to bone up on protein-rich veggies, beans, etc. (I eat meat. I will not shun it. [Ever?] But I'm happy to eat it in moderation and I want to get most of my protein from non-meat sources.)

I asked for advice from muh Facebook friends, and folks suggested (list!):

» edamame (see above)
» cottage cheese (I love it! But I must use moderation here, too, because cheese is one of my over-eater foods)
» hemp seed powder (what the what?! I can't wait to find out what this is like)
» quinoa
» tofu
» tempeh
» seitan
» nuts
» avocado
» kashi cereals (which I totally wanna learn how to scratchmake)

It's a great list. I want it to grow. And now I'm wondering what other food groups, vitamins, minerals, fats, etc. I could work into my diet to bring a better balance to meals.

For now, though, focusing on protein seems like the plan ...

a week of good decisions

Let me put it this way:

I'm drafting this blog entry as I sit and watch my husband make dinner (which he almost always does ... I'm lucky!), and I'm drankin' an entire beer to eat up the last of my bonus Weight Watchers points.

Not even my activity points (I earned 33 of those this week, by the way). No. Just the standard 49 extra points that Weight Watchers doles out to, I think, everyone.

I'm also indulging in a simple and decadent dinner: some Patrick-made tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich (on homemade spent-grain bread!). Even with all the cheese and butter in the meal, I had to make sure to include a little dessert (bittersweet chocolate and a granola square) to finish up those extra points.

You know what else? I exercised a lot this week: four trips to the gym to hop on the elliptical (plus some stretching and crunches), one visit that included a 55-minute body flow class, and a 20-mile bike ride up a mountain and along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Not only am I working hard to use up my extra points, but it's on a week I would have assumed I'd need them most.

But I haven't needed them. It's interesting ... every time I've come home from a hard workout, I've maybe wanted a piece of fruit, but that's it. It's usually at least an hour before I eat a real meal (and I've been returning from my workouts around mealtimes).

The reason I'm working to use my extra points? I suppose if I left them on the table, I'd technically be eating fewer calories and possibly speeding my weight loss. But I've always thought of the Weight Watchers allotment as an indication of a healthy intake. Under-cutting my allotment, consequently, has seemed like a bad accident waiting to happen.

the week and its accomplishments

What you read above is just an indication of how good my week has gone. Some other things I think were pretty brilliant include:

» I was as sugar-free as I aimed to be and I saw the results that I thought I might. Namely, I didn't experience my typical end-of-week doldrums. My cane-sugar consumption was limited to the granola squares I made last week, bittersweet chocolate and a single indulgence in three Fig Newton's (on a day I was desperately hungry for I-don't-know-why). Otherwise? Fruit and honey.

I'll keep my low-sugar goal for the week ahead. I only anticipate breaking it when I know there's a good reason to enjoy a super-sweet treat.

» One pound, lost. I'm not *worried* about losing weight as much as I am about getting in shape, but it was getting ridiculous that I was making some fairly good decisions and not budging an ounce. Sometime earlier this week I wondered if I was eating too muich "zero points" fruit. Which, of course, still has calories.

So I checked out the USDA's guidelines for daily fruit: 2 cups. Umm. I was eating a load more than 2 cups.

That day I decided to cut back to 2 cups of fruit, and since that day I've felt less full ... and I'm finally down one pound on the scale.

» I got the gym four times, as hoped! The previous week, I'd only found my way to the gym twice. This week, though, I headed to the gym three times before work; then I headed to the Saturday body flow class at 9:30 AND followed that up immediately with 50 minutes on the elliptical; AND AND did a 19-mile training bike ride with Patrick today.

I've felt able and willing to do all this exercise. If my good mood and high energy continue, I think I might have another week like it ahead.

» That bike ride ... It felt pretty good. Patrick and I rode 19 miles. We started by heading straight up Mill Mountain. At the top, we headed left (away from the (Star) and connected with the Blue Ridge Parkway. We rode that until we hit Vinton, at which point we headed back into town and headed home.

We averaged a little better than 10 miles an hour and my top speed on the toughest part of the ride (the final climb on Mill Mountain) was 4 mph. Those are both numbers I want to improve, but I'm happy just to have established a precedent for myself.

And this is what I looked like upon my return ...



Just so's you know.

» Spreadsheets! Oh wait ... this deserves its own blog entry ...

the week in review & its lesson

The past week was ... pretty good. I didn't reach any of my goals from last week (I didn't hit the gym at least four times, only two; I didn't wear my heart rate monitor once, because I still haven't found it; the closest I came to waking up at 5 a.m. -- regardless of my intention to go the gym -- was the morning I got out of bed at 5:55. "Yay! Still the 5 o'clock hour!").

The thing that makes this all kinda OK is that the weekend was great. Seriously.

Patrick and I, as I mentioned earlier, rode our bikes up a mountain and made our first trip to a Star City Brewers Guild meeting. We met a ton of great people who brew beer. Additionally? The food spread included a lot of healthy options (I ate fresh greens, hummus, tabouli, flat bread and some spinach dip). And, AND ... how many different versions of homemade lifestyle did I hear about? Among them: compost worms in someone's house, homemade kimchi, other folks' versions of beer breads, home-cured ham, homegrown mushrooms, hop gardens. This group meets once a month and I expect I'll learn something new about beer and about scratchmade living at every meeting.

So that was how amazing Saturday was.

Sunday was pretty great, too: a hike halfway along Tinker Ridge; homemaking an Italian loaf, granola bars*, granola cereal; and a delicious dinner of that fresh bread, toasted and accompanied by sliced pear, tomato, roquefort, fresh mozzarella and honey.

Are you f*cking kidding me? The weekend could not have gotten much better. And it's one I want to replicate again and again. I want a bike ride every weekend, a hike, homemaking, and good tasty nutritious eating.

Is this some version of spring fever?

this is the tasty italian, made by patrick. i'm so glad we finally started making all the bread we eat ... so simple and yet such a feeling of accomplishment. below? the bread mid-mix, and a little saazie-face to get you all "awwww"-y. (this is what we see anytime we're in the kitchen: her trying to be as close to us as possible without getting in the way. ok, sometimes getting in the way.)

In any case, as good as the weekend was, I still want to take some notes from my less-than-stellar week ...

the lessons

1. I need to seriously cut the sugar out. And I need to give credit to my fruit & oat bowls for satisfying my sweet tooth.

I was pretty go-go-go all week ... until Friday.

I've tried to bring a certain tradition into the workplace (which I borrowed from Patrick's old job in Knoxville): #coffeefriday; celebrate payday with coffee and breakfast! It's brilliant and important and something to look forward to every two weeks.

In past weeks I've brought in homemade scones and biscotti, a co-worker brought donuts another week, and yet another everyone contributed to oatmeal breakfast (bringing spices, oats, fruit, coconut, etc.)

This week? I brought in some delectable treats from Bread Craft, a sweet little shop serving up European-style goods. I highly recommend it, and I will eat there on into the future (their salads are tasty, their sandwiches hearty, their cheese is housemade!).


But between my coffee Friday morning and my ginger scone from Bread Craft, I turned crabby instantly. And then I ate another pastry in the afternoon (danish).

I knew what was happening, but I was not able/willing to fight it. I knew that sugar is no good for me first thing in the morning (or in that quantity, or unaccompanied by protein and fiber). But I picked up the scone and ate it. I knew that the reason I wanted the second pastry was because I'd eaten the first. But I ate the second pastry.

I'm going to challenge myself this week: I'm going to limit my cane-sugar intake to the little amount that's included in my newly homemade granola-bar-squares (one ounce of granola square has about 0.1 ounce of sugar) and bittersweet chocolate. Otherwise, I'm going to look to fruit to satisfy my sweet tooth, or to forgo a sweet when I would otherwise indulge the craving.

What I hope to see is a week of me feeling full of energy and ready to take on all the challenges that await me.

here's a nonsugar dessert I enjoyed earlier in the week: chopped pear, plain old-fashioned oats, malted barley, semisweet chocolate & honey. it was delicious and it's the kind of thing i plan to reach for whenever i think "sweet!"

2. I absolutely must have all my morning stuffs prepped if I want to get my ass successfully and energetically to the gym. I lost my keys last week. Also, I have no idea where my heart rate monitor is. Some mornings my lunch wasn't ready and when as I was going to bed all I could think about was how rushed I was going to feel trying to fit in a trip to the gym, getting ready for work, eating breakfast and making my lunch. I'm pretty sure that anxiety kept me in bed some mornings.

So I want to remove all simple obstacles. I aim to have: my gym clothes folded and ready for me, my keys stored alongside them, my iPod full and charged, my lunch made.

I'll limit my goals to these two, but I think of them as very small, integral cogs in a very big machine. I hope to be running more smoothly one week from today.

* The recipe for granola bars (shown above cut into about 2-point portions) is from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. I recommend just about anything that this behemoth food brand creates (Cook's Illustrated, Cook's Country, the America's Test Kitchen PBS show, cooksillustrated.com). Their business model is built around being only mildly open source, so to speak. I'll respect that and post a recipe for the granola bars only after I've tweaked it enough to feel like I can call it my own.

another argument for whole foods

See this stuff? I think Dr. Lustig would approve.



I woke up Saturday morning to an episode of The People's Pharmacy called "Sugar Hazards." It featured this Lustig man, and later a Dr. Teitelbaum, both of whom were discussing how harmful sugar-laden (read: "processed") foods are to our metabolisms and health.

This radio program happened to be one of Those Moments ... when a few truths that were already hinted at in my life suddenly found the ground they needed to stand on, firm.

what i came away with
One of the audio clips you'll find in that link above is an extended interview with Lustig. He's coming from a place of science and medicine (he's a pediatric neuroendocrinologist).

Following are some of the points he makes (paraphrased by me), ones that resonated.

» lustig likes to say that when god gave us the poison, he packaged it with the antedote. In this case, the poison is sugar, or fructose, and the antedote is fiber. Think of fruits. Even sugar cane, which is a plant -- mostly stalk -- that contains a relatively modest amount of sweet. (He adds that the only time that's not true is with honey, "and that's guarded by bees.")

Our bodies are refined systems and, as with so many things in nature, they rely on a particular balance. The level of sugars that nature provides are low, in addition to the fact that our bodies have to work pretty hard processing fiber to access them. This setup is how we evolved and how our bodies, when healthy, function optimally.

» sugar is readily available to us now, and it's messing with our insulin levels. and this is contributing to obesity. and low energy. and hunger. Here's something I didn't know: Sugar is two things: glucose and fructose. Glucose, as Lustig says, is metabolized into energy immediately. Fructose, on the other hand, is metabolized only by the liver, which stores it immediately as fat and increases our level of insulin (which is "the energy storage hormone" ... something else I didn't know).

Basically, all the fructose we eat can never be anything but stored fat; consequently it can never be used toward our energy output, it's never given a chance!

So even if I eat as many calories as I burn, if some of those are fructose, those calories work against me in two ways by: 1) immediately turning into fat, and 2) putting me at an energy deficit. I've just gained weight but I'm still hungry. And I lack physical energy. And so I reach for more food. Which may contain fructose. And if this cycle goes far enough, I become a tired, hungry, fattened individual.

Lustig points to the sugars added to processed foods as a main culprit in the nation's increasing obesity problem. What's the best way to avoid them? According to him, shop the perimeter of a grocery store to buy produce and whole foods. If it's on a shelf, it's built for shelf-life by way of preservative sugars. ... Another argument for whole foods!

» don't exercise to lose weight. exercise because it makes you feel good. Lustig says "diet is about weight; exercise is about health. Diet is about pounds; exercise is about inches."

One incredible thing Lustig repeated throughout the interview: it is a false notion that if you *simply* burn more calories than you consume, you'll lose weight. One reason? If a diet continuously feeds you fructose, you'll immediately store it as fat and rob yourself of healthful, useful energy. Another: studies, he says, have shown that exercise does little in the way of "burning" fat. Instead, it converts it to muscle.

So, he says, "go out and get some exercise done, just don't look at the scale." Don't use exercise as a tool for weight loss, but as an absolutely necessary tool for good health. "The more exercise you do," he says, "the better you're gonna feel."

***
I've known that I wanted to stay away from processed foods, but I didn't have a full picture of why that was. I knew I liked the idea of eating things that came from the earth or wholly from animals (and I started a list of whole grains that are on my bucket list). It just seemed right. This radio program, though, put this idea in full focus.

I've known that too much sugar makes me feel off-kilter: hungry more quickly, irritable, tired. I even confessed that I needed to nix donuts from my breakfast options after a crabby weekend that should have been splendid. Now I know why, biochemically, I was right.

And I've just recently started understanding that activity can be a part of my life for the the damn *fun* of it. I'm determined to emphasize activities that bring me happiness (and aren't just an item on my list of daily chores). Now here's Lustig saying exactly that.

This radio show, man ... good timing.

but don't take my word for it!
There's so much more to get from this discussion. I truly think it's worth the hour to listen to it. The first ten minutes may require your undivided attention as they involve the most intense science, but if you don't have a full hour to spare, at least multi-task with this in the background.

... and let me know what else you get from it!

this go-round: kind to myself

Getting fit / losing weight / eating better can focus so much on all the things that have been wrong, plus a long list of things that Must Be Done To Do It Right.

The process can revolve around setting high goals, introducing good habits, eliminating bad ones, and all this all at once. Because things were bad! And I want them to be good!

In previous attempts to adopt a healthy lifestyle, I've spent a lot of time making plans, writing lists, establishing incremental goals and imagining a finish line.

But this is all to say that this approach can be ... stressful. It can feel a lot like setting myself up for failure. If I decide that certain actions fall in the "good" category and others fall in the "bad" category, I seem to leave myself little room for forgiveness when I inevitably stumble back into a bad habit, or fail to achieve a good one.

this time around
I can feel a difference in myself with this most recent attempt to be healthful: I talk about my goals for the gym as my "ultimate" goals; I eat the donut (and count the points); I sleep in some mornings that I'd planned to head to the gym.

I hadn't found it terribly easy to articulate why I think this is the right approach this time, but I tried to relate it to someone just the other day, and I think I hit the nail on the head. It went something like:

I'm working very hard to do the right things, but I'm taking an approach this time around that allows me to sleep in some mornings. I have to believe I'm making the right choices for myself; that belief is going to be the foundation of my success.

So why is this looser tactic good for me right now? I see two key things that make it feel right:

1. (Specific to my gym goals) I want to establish a happy relationship with my exercise. There are some mornings I DO NOT WANT to go the gym. On those days, I would be very grudgingly hitting my alarm clock at 5 a.m., I'd be donning workout attire that would likely feel a size too small (because of my own frustration at even being awake) and I would take my heavy, slow legs to the elliptical machine.

I ain't dumb. I know that on days like that, many people say that once they make themselves go and get on the machine, they feel better. And I'll get there, one day. But right now, I want to work on building a strong and happy relationship with exercise. I want to reinforce the notion that the gym is a place I go because I'm excited to go there. That it's a place I go because I have the energy and motivation to make it part of my life.

And I have those days a lot. And I have this strong notion that those days will breed more days like that. And then longer visits to the gym. And  then adding weights to my routine. And a class.

I want to nurture my exercise through positive experiences. I *also* want to have room for forgiveness on the days I don't wake up at 5 a.m. and don sneakers. I don't want to rack up guilt over my actions. I know me. Feelings of guilt feed my bad habits. So how about eliminating that guilt?

2. (And I think this is perhaps more valuable) I want to trust myself. The lists, goals, enumeration of bad habits that I've taken up in the past, they sometimes felt like penance for having made wrong, unhealthy choices.

The thing is, I'm not a bad person. Nor am I an untrustworthy sentinel of my own happy life. I treat myself like I am sometimes, and that's another way I rack up guilt; another reason to berate myself; another way to introduce negativity into my life.

I can trust myself. I refuse to do otherwise.

So adopting the attitude that I know it'll all be OK if I decide to skip the gym this morning or to eat that one donut, it's empowering. Because what I *know* is that I'll continue to make good choices. I'm going to find bad choices peppered through my life. It will seldom be the bad choices themselves that lead to trouble, but the idea that I can't recover from them, or that they define me.

I'm defined by the smart, able person that I am. I'd like to start giving her credit.

caveat, of course
These two concepts only work in the context of me having finally come to terms with the work that it takes to be healthy. If I had never learned how to eat nutritiously or that exercise was an absolute must in my life, these could easily be crutches to justify bad decision after bad decision.

I get the feeling, though, that I have learned some things that I cannot unlearn ... about how to be a thoughtful eater and a motivated, active person. Within *that* context, this approach feels absolutely right.

since last we met ...

... I've done some good things!

(list!)
> I cleared out my digital spaces. Gmail: empty. Google docs: streamlined & organized. Facebook friends: edited. Google Reader subscriptions: improved! All these pieces of data float, they're weightless. But they tax my mind so much when they're not meaningful, organized, utilized.

E-mail, for instance: I was using it to hold on to information (passwords, recipes, etc.). But I never actually searched my e-mail archives for those things regularly. And in any case, is that really what e-mail should be for? I mean, would I keep a big bucket in my house to store every piece of mail I got, just in case I'd need to refer to it? No, I'd level some importance on each piece of mail, and then *do* something with it. So that's that. My e-mail *must* remain a weigh station until I figure out the usefulness of any given piece of correspondence, and then *act* on that usefulness.

> I signed up for the gym! I had my choice of a free gym membership in the town where I work (through my husband's employer, who's based in Blacksburg even though he works from Roanoke ... where we live), or I could get a reduced membership at a gym where I live (though *my* employer, who's based in Roanoke even though I work in the Blacksburg area. Ha!).

I love to save a buck, but the Blacksburg gym would have meant me adding to my commute (which is already 3 hours total every day), and carefully coordinating my (sometimes unpredictable) work schedule to make sure I get to that gym before it closes. Too many obstacles. And I'm honest enough with myself to know that I'll use things like long commutes to excuse skipping my workout.

So it's a membership at my Roanoke gym instead. And in fact, it's a gym I attended when we lived here four years ago. Home sweet home.

> I went to the gym! It only took me about two weeks longer than it should have to actually sign up for the gym, so I was kind of proud of myself for waking up this morning and taking advantage of my membership immediately. 5 a.m. alarm. To the gym by 5:30. Thirty minutes on an ellipticalmadoohicky. Back home. It was short and sweet, and ultimately I want to *get* to the gym by 5 a.m., but I told myself I'd ease into it. Better I start slow and gain traction than start with a high bar and feel like I'm falling short.

> I tracked my Weight Watchers points all week. It took a little bit of effort, especially on the weekend when we took a great day trip to Charlottesville, Va., and I had to remember all my food choices. But I did it. And I was honest. And I was only 2 points over for the week. When I get on the right track with food, I know I'm in for a string of even *more* healthy decisions. So yay!

> I pre-tracked my breakfast and lunch for today. I've always found this helpful, and almost necessary to set up good food habits throughout the week. Not to mention that I can usually find a time to pre-track, but by the end of a day of looking *back* on food I ate and trying to record it, I find myself full of excuses for not doing it. Which tends to lead to more days of not tracking, which eventually leads to days of not actually making the smart food choices that tracking helps me focus on.

So, a pretty great start to the week. ...

... *ahem* after this confession
My husband planned a pretty amazing weekend for us. I even drafted a sweet blog entry about how wonderful he is and what a productive Saturday and Sunday we had ahead of us ...

And then I got in a crabby, crabby mood on Saturday. And it carried over into Sunday. This happened last weekend, too. And either I *hate* the weekends (???), or there's something else going on. And I think I may have identified it: Saturday morning breakfast.

It should be a treat, right? First day of repose, lazy morning ... "good" breakfast! Of ... donuts! (It's good because it's delicious. Uhuh.)

But yeah, sugar in the morning ... hell no more. Hell. No. More. Because I think it's crashing my spirits right into the ground. Poor husband! He really did have a great weekend planned, and we ended up doing most of the things we intended to: drive to Charlottesville, with a stop at a brew-pub on the way (here's his review of Blue Mountain Brewery); and then good coffee & walkin' our sweet dog through C'ville. And there I was, pouting. Boooooo.

In any case, it's a lesson for my future breakfast: if anything, I'll make it bacon. Hold the sugar.

things that work for me

a sense of order
Please give me the same breakfast and same lunch every day. Give me the same time to go to bed and the same time to wake up. I like to catch the same bus. Hit the gym at the same time. Do mostly the same gym routine. Same soap and shampoo. Same makeup. If I could wear the exact same outfit everyday (the *cutest* one, of course), I'd do it ... but there are rules.

I'll fill in the spaces between with excitement, big new ideas, daydreamy dreams. But that sense of routine is my *bones* ... it gives me structure, something to build on.

My routine, though, has to be made by me. And I've come off a long stretch (year? more?) of giving in to a series of disconnected moments that mostly consist of sitting (because it's cozy) and eating tasty things (because they're tasty) in the quantity that suited me (because I wanna, that's why).

mission! So a sense of order works for me. Time for me to start working for *it*.


cutting sugar
So simple. And yet ...

When I eat sugar, I want it in this weird, overpowering way. Addiction? Is that too strong a word? But there's definitely a little voice that bubbles up in me. "cookie cookie cookie cookie!" I am not even exaggerating that it's on repeat.

Once I've successfully kept sugar at bay for, say, two or three weeks, I find it pretty easy to turn down in general. But we just came off holidays. And then there's that year or two of me not putting order (and healthfulness) on my list of priorities (what list of priorities? I think I might have also done away with *that*).

So, like, yestreday: big step. I did not *immediately* eat the delicious oatmeal raisin cookie that someone had brought in to work. I didn't even eat it directly after my (healthy!) lunch. I *even* made a deal with myself ... drink two bottles of water, you get the cookie. So I brought that cookie into my office. And it sat there for two hours as I worked away at my two bottles of water. But this is what was going in my brain (along with all my work-related brainstuff): "eat the cookie eat the cookie eat the cookie eat the cookie eat the cookie eat the cookie eatthecookieeatthecookieeatthecookie..." Not kidding. Even as I had these words resonating, I was thinking "people must know this is what's going on in my head when I face food temptations. That I am constantly battling a voice that's telling me to do something I know I would feel better *not* doing."

So there you go.

And that little voice quiets down, even goes away, when I've exchanged my sugary treats for fruity-spicy-whole-grainy treats.

mission! start using simple ingredients to create sweet treats for myself, instead of reaching for the highly-sugared treats that are so (so!) easy to grab.


lists. making lists. reading lists. scratching items off lists.
I have forever been and will always be at heart, a list-maker.

The earliest meaningful lists I remember making involved, at age 15, me looking forward to being an adult: what my apartment would look like, what clothes I would have, what furniture I would buy, what colors I would put on the walls, etc. Lists have covered everything from big daydreams to what I needed to get done in the next three hours.

It's only in my recent adulthood that I actually *did* the things on my list. lists + action = productivity and accomplishment! It's a good feeling.

But in the last year or so (what is it with this last year??), I've stopped taking the time to list-make in the first place. And I've come to understand that even in those earlier list-making years, when I wasn't *doing* the things on the lists, the mere act of compiling the list was productive: it engaged my brain, focused it on a goal, and forced me to be creative in thinking on that goal.

My list-maker brain has atrophied. Horror!

mission! Make lists! This one is fairly simple, because despite having *not* made meaningful lists in the past year or so, I know I still deeply enjoy them. All I need to do is dedicate the smallest corner of my day to it. (I totally count this entire blog entry as my first list, by the way. Totally.)

Bottom line? I'm ready to examine the things in my life that help me stay engaged in a healthful lifestyle, and I'm ready to make those things a priority.

getting fit, finally

For as long as I can remember, I've been exceptionally aware of my body and the space it took up. I think my earliest body-conscious memory is from age seven or eight, sitting on my front porch swing. When neighbors walked by, it felt like it took forever for them to get out of sight -- and in turn for me to get out of their sight. I just didn't like being exposed, because I thought I looked bad.

And forget about puberty and everything that brought with it. Another clear memory: walking across my high school campus and being aware of my thighs, and how it felt like they were in a race for their lives, fighting each other to get to some invisible finish line.

step one: food (part one)
A few years ago, I finally did something about my eating habits. No more mindlessly consuming whatever food I wanted to eat in the moment. Instead, I spent a couple of years resenting my new (reasonable) limits -- using Weight Watchers -- and actually losing weight. Lots of it. I went from a high of 160 in high school to 107 by 2008.

It was a few years of resentment, yeah, but also of truly realizing how much was too much (and how I'd spent a lifetime of eating too mcuh), and of discovering a little tiny body under my extra weight. I enjoyed it. I sashayed.

And then life happened, and maybe I started not paying as much attention to what I was eating; and have I mentioned how I never really ever got into a committed fitness routine?

I'm back up to 122. Certainly not as high as my highest, but I also haven't been living my happiest days. And the biggest problem: the fact that I've let go of my control over food.

steps two and three: food & do
My big accomplishment in losing weight the first time around was understand and respecting that I needed to eat less food. Where I fell a little short was the types of food I was eating.

That resentment?  I think it had to do with the fact that five Ritz crackers cost two points in Weight Watchers. And then the cheese to go with them? Three points. That's five points! Of my 18 daily points!

Something I've already improved in the past month of bringing positive changes back into my life is those food choices. How about I bypass the Ritz and cheese altogether and use my five points to eat half a bell pepper, a Roma tomato, 3 ounces of spinach, 2 ounces of hummus and 2 slices of whole wheat bread?

Not only will I be satisfied after that meal, but I'll have also gotten a good dose of my grain and vegetable servings for the day.

Also? Delicious.

So that's huge. You know what's huger? I want ... have an actual desire ... to exercise. I want to do things. I want to accomplish things. With my body.

I'm pretty excited about this part. Something clicked. I stripped away the limits I've imposed on myself; I started understanding just how much I can do if I want to; I started imagining my body as an athletic body.

It's a long, exhausting road ahead. I'm looking forward to being out of breath.