Thursday, March 7, 2013

Proud of Myself

This morning I thought I would take it a little easy and do yoga.  My muscles have been sore.  Now let's start with a bunch of wedding blogs telling me that yoga is a good way for stressed out brides to relax.  I also know that it's got a ton of health benefits.  I've done yoga maybe twice, but I really want to start working it into my work out 2-3 times per week, at least once a week it'll have to be on top of cardio because I work out 5 days a week, and bumping it up to 6 just isn't on the table right now, but maybe eventually.

Any who, I bought a yoga for beginners DVD that has 4 different types of yoga.  I started with just the regular one.  Well to cut to the chase I was even more sore after the work out than when I started.  Yoga is no joke and the entire time I was thinking there's no way this is the beginners DVD, but then I looked up some advanced poses and quickly realized I was definitely in the beginners video.  It was super hard and I felt pretty good after wards, but I still felt like I needed cardio.  I was in no shape to be doing a work out DVD so I decided on a walk.  Well about two hours later I still hadn't been for a walk and I had even talked myself out of going.  I had about a 10 minute conversation with myself, I do this a lot, but don't worry I promise I don't argue with myself, so I'm not crazy ;). I ended up talking myself into going and told myself that it just had to be short- 10 minutes.  Well I ended up going for just over 20 minutes and I felt great.  I am proud of myself.  I talked myself out of and back into an exercise.  This is a small victory, and I'm celebrating it.

My eating habits have continued to improve throughout the week and I haven't been doing any unnecessary snacking, also a good thing and my weight is now heading back in the direction it should be.  I take two rest days on weekends and my weight always seems to jump on Mondays.  I'm sure there's a correlation so I'm going to make the fiancee walk with me every night and see if that helps.  Also try and keep my snacking in check since weekends are seriously bad.  I know this however, and I'm not in denial about it.  I just need to take action.  We'll see how this weekend goes.

I'm also debating trying No Excuses Boot Camp Online.  I saw it on Fit to the Finish, one of the weight loss blogs I follow.  Diane is awesome, follow her.  Anyway, it seems to work for a lot of people.  Still thinking about it. I even have a few recruits, my mom and one of my bridesmaids, to do it with me.  I need to make a decision by tonight.  Stay tuned.

Stay positive.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Challenges

My weight climbed again today.  I'm extremely frustrated, but trying not to let myself be swayed into old habits.  It's wednesday and thus far I have had a very successful week.  I've worked out all three days, and have had pretty decent eating habits.  I ate too much nasi at dinner last night, and felt guilty about it afterwords, but it was full of vegetables and yummy spices so I let that help my food conscience.  I'm not going to dwell on the scale.  I'm just going to keep doing what I know and has proven to be successful in weight loss.

Today, I'm going to be focusing on some of the challenges I've been facing since I moved to The Netherlands and I started this journey.  What comes to your mind when you think about The Netherlands? For some people it is legalized marijuana, but for most it's cheese, really really good cheese.  I'm living in a cheese and bread country.  Not necessarily ideal for weight loss, but statistically the Dutch are thinner than Americans and have an overall healthier lifestyle.  My opinion is that this is because they walk everywhere.  Seriously, everywhere.  My fiancee and I walk to the grocery store, to the market, even to dinners out and to meet friends.  It's definitely a completely different world on this side of the pond and one I'm rather fond of.

The first time I came to visit Holland I was miserable.  I was sore and exhausted from all the walking.  Living here for over two months has quickly gotten me over that.  I enjoy walking (when it's not raining) and enjoy the freedom of not having to drive everywhere.  I'm attempting to learn how to drive a manual car, and it's going pretty well, but they have all these round-a-bouts here and walker and bikers are everywhere! It's going to take awhile for me to get comfortable enough to drive here.

Anyway, being in a bread and cheese country has serious temptations.  Also, I forgot to mention the chocolate.  There's a serious Belgium influence on the chocolate here and it's to die for.  Love it, seriously.  But that's making it harder.  The food here is delicious and that's what is making this the most challenging.  Cheese is full of fat, but good fat for the most part, if you don't consume too much.  Bread, here it's not as bad for you.  There's less sugar in it, and mostly it's fresh.  Like so fresh you have to freeze it otherwise it's bad after just a day! I'm trying to consume less bread than most of the Dutch, but they have all kinds of flavors full of seeds and nuts.

The delicious food is something that I'm struggling with over here, but my eating habits have been better, and I'm working on keeping them that way.

Stay positive.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Brushing Off a Bad Day

This morning I got on the scale and was immediately disappointed.  I know that I did not have the greatest eating habits over the weekend, but was back on track yesterday.   I wasn't expecting to find that all my progress could be washed away.  Then I started thinking that this is why many people choose to only weigh weekly.  You have natural variations in your weight based on water intake, retention, and for us females, that monthly time.  It's more consistent to weigh weekly, but for my OCD self I can't just weigh weekly.

I could have let today's bad weigh ruin my day, and let it turn into a disastrous cycle where I eat horribly for a week before I get back on track, but I wanted to take control.  Yesterday I said I was going to continue with the slow exercise again to build back up, but yesterday I didn't feel like I had done any work out so I decided to jump up today. Boy, did I feel it mid work out.  I actually didn't think I was going to be able to make it through the full 40 minutes of the video, but I did (minus one section, seriously I have no rhythm and cannot do one routine, it does more harm than good I swear).  So the 42 minute work out was closer to 37 I suppose.

I also took sometime this morning to reflect on my eating habits and rewarded myself for a few things I did yesterday.  After dinner my fiancee wanted vla.  He offered to make me a bowl as well and I immediately turned him down.  It was more of a reflex than actually thinking about the reasons I shouldn't.  This was good for me because it gave me less time to talk myself into having the bowl.  We also went for a short walk after dinner which made me feel pretty good.  I had made a delicious dinner of honey-soy chicken thighs, potatoes and fresh broccoli.  We eat a lot of potatoes, something most people don't do when trying to lose weight, but I try and limit my portions to very very small and fill up on more of the vegetables that I've made.  Plus, about 30% of your diet should come from carbs, and a few potatoes is better to me than a few slices of bread (just my opinion).  And I've tried to get my man to stop eating so many, but he's Dutch and he loves them.  Oh well.

So, I'm done with my work out, but it looks like the Holland spring is here and it's supposed to be another beautiful day so I'm also going to go for a nice long walk today.  I'm predicting being sore tomorrow so it's looking like it could be a yoga day.

Stay positive.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Back On The Wagon

I wouldn't necessarily say that I've been off the wagon, but more like hanging on for dear life.  I have not been working out as well or as often as I should and although my eating habits have been better than in the past they have not been ideal.  Last night we had people over for dinner.  I made hot dogs, hamburgers and macaroni and cheese.  They wanted a taste of a real american bbq, and this was all I could think of.  Plus, it's still winter and too cold to actually stand outside and grill something.

I did pretty well; I ate one hot dog and one hamburger.  I probably should have skipped the bun on the hot dog, but too late for that now.  I had a very small serving of macaroni and cheese.  Where I really went wrong was the two, er, three cupcakes.  I ate one during the cooking phase and then had two while our guests were here.

This morning I did pretty well, I've already exercised.  Because my workouts have been moderate walking I started with a tape, 20 minute zumba express.  I'll do this for another day or two before increasing to the 45 minute cardio and rotating in taebo and P90X cardio.  I made this commitment and today I'm reaffirming it.  I don't know where I am on the wagon, but I'm not off.  Still hanging on for dear life probably, but I'm still there.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Not My Best Day

As you can see by looking at my food log, yesterday was not my best day.  I had zero self control, something I seem to have had a lot of lately, and ate way too much of food that I probably shouldn't have even been eating in the first place.  I, however, am .1kg thinner than I was yesterday.  I'll not ask questions about it, but move on and make today a better day.  Although, my fiancee and I are going beer tasting tonight and there's snacks provided, so we'll see.  Saturday is generally my cheat day and I feel that if I do pretty well throughout the beginning of my day I can have a few beer samples and some snacks tonight.

Each day I just try and do my best.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Small Victories

Small victories should be acknowledged and celebrated.  For me, maintaining my weight for a week consistently, even when I haven't lost any is a small victory.  It means that I need to do some work to push past maintenance, but in the month of february I lost 2 full kg. going from 100kg to 98kg.  I need to lose 3 in march to meet my first goal.  I can do this and I will do this.

I have decided that my first 5kg goal will be celebrated with dinner at a delicious mexican restaurant with my fiancee.  I once read something on Pinterest that said "don't reward yourself with food, you're not a dog."  I completely disagree with this statement.  I also recently read something from Jillian Michaels about making 90% of your calories for health and 10% for fun (I don't think those were the exact numbers, but you get the gist).  If you are taking limiting yourself the foods you love in order to reach a healthy life you should be able to rewards yourself with food, of course this too has it's limits.  You can't reward yourself with a half gallon of ice cream after every workout, but for every small goal you reach (5-10lbs) you can rewards yourself with a treat.  I recommend going out to dinner and ordering something you wouldn't order to reach your goals (i.e. don't order a salad, unless you're crazy and love salad) but just treat yourself to something that makes you happy.  For me, it will be chicken fajitas with extra guac instead of a chicken taco salad where I don't eat the shell.  Remember, one bad meal won't make you fat, just like one good meal won't make you skinny.  Gaining and losing weight is about consistency, and if you take one cheat meal to reward yourself don't feel guilty.

You should chose how you celebrate your victories.  Don't let the opinions of others change your mind about your progress.  Maybe you want to buy a new shirt to show off your slimmer figure.  Whatever it is it's something that you can look forward to and the closer you get to your mini goal the harder you work because you really want to give yourself that reward.

Good luck and keep up the healthy lifestyle.