Analyze This

So I finally found a therapist who deals with eating issues.  I had my second session last night, and I think this might actually be a good fit.  She battled binging and purging issues herself, and says she's been healthy for 30 years. 

I wasn't sure how this would go down.  Would I be lying on a couch?  Would she ask me about my mother?  I spent most of the first session perched on the edge of her sofa, completely on edge, my purse clutched on my lap.  I finally started to unclench about 50 minutes into our hour session.  During our first meeting, we talked about a lot - my history with weight, my family, my husband, my eating habits, my job, a lot.  We didn't get into any big earth-shattering revelations, but it was nice to have someone who could really listen without judging.  I left with an assignment - to bring in a written log of everything I had eaten for three days. 

I'm no stranger to the food diary.  Anyone who's been on Weight Watchers knows - "you bite it, you write it".  Well, here's my mini-confession for the week.  I haven't been going to Weight Watchers since I started this exercise plan about a month ago.  With the hour at the gym every day, I haven't found another meeting time that works, and I've been bad about tracking.  I decided to try a food tracker on www.sparkpeople.com - it's actually a pretty decent site, maybe a little too much going on, but it's free, and the nutrition tracker is helpful. 

My other mini-confession?  Even on Weight Watchers, I know I sometimes fudged on my eating.  Instead of facing up to a place where I binged on calories, I would think, "Oh, I just won't write it down, and we'll call that my bonus points for the week."  If I did it again?  Covertly stuffed a donut down my gullet with my office door closed?  "Well, surely I didn't use alllll of those points last time.  Problem solved!"  I never really faced the ugliness of a 20 oz. Culvers Concrete Mixer with vanilla custard, hot fudge and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. 

This time I was very careful to write down everything.  I wanted to make sure my therapist saw every nasty detail.  The reality?  Is that there aren't many nasty details.  My eating is overall really quite healthy and balanced.  Until I get stressed.   Namely stressed at work.  Then I stuff my face with anything I can get my hands on, including candy from the candy dish, vending machine delights, and 20 oz. ice cream treats.  (By the way, that Concrete Mixer?  Almost 1000 calories.)  I am truly an emotional eater.

My bigger revelation came yesterday.  She asked me about what age I first realized I was overweight, or felt like I was fat.  I thought back in time, and realized that I always expected to be fat as a little kid.  I was pretty average-sized, but my family was always overweight.  I remember visiting a shoe store as a 7-year-old with my mom.  The saleslady was tall, and overweight.  Not obese, just a little on the large size.  She looked like she was still quite active, and had very thick legs.  After we were done in the store, and walking around the mall, I said to my mother, "I hope I look like her when I grow up".  Mom drug me back to the store to tell the lady, thinking I had paid her such a nice compliment.  The reality was, in my 7-year-old head, I was thinking it was my fate to be fat.  When I told my mother I wanted to look like the saleslady, the sentence should have ended with, "...instead of looking like the rest of our family."  Thank God I had the tact not to say it. 

That was many years ago.  After telling the story to my therapist, she responded with, "Do you think, deep down, that you still believe it's your fate to look like your mother?"  I couldn't help myself.  My emotions betrayed me, and the tears started flowing.  I nodded silently.  Could I really be sabotaging my own weight loss efforts with a deep-seeded belief that I am destined to be fat? 

Clearly there's a lot more to discuss and think about.  My assignment this week is to do a dominant/non-dominant hand journal entry.  I'm supposed to wait until I'm very stressed/emotional about something, and then start writing with my dominant hand.  Let it all out, don't hold back.  Then I'm supposed to switch to my non-dominant hand and picture 7-year-old me, thinking I'm destined to wear bathing suits with skirts for the rest of my life, and ask that girl, "What do you need from me?"  Apparently, the non-intellectual half of my brain will come up with something interesting. 

We'll see. 

  

Seriously?

Today I took a little walk down to our company store.  My job requires that we wear shirts embroidered with the company logo, and I decided I needed a couple of new ones for spring.  I grabbed one off the shelf, and took it to the sales guy so that he could order one in my size with the appropriate embroidery.  He asked what size I wanted, and I replied XXL (all my other company shirts are XL and XXL, so I felt pretty comfortable with that). 

The guy actually eyes me up and down, hesitates, and says, "Are you sure?  Those shirts run small."  I about smacked him. 

Shit like that is (one of the the many reasons) why I'm tired of being fat. 

On a slightly related note, I have to share my new favorite healthy lunch item.  I'm a huge fan of Trader Joes, I do a lot of organic shopping there.  Recently I found their "Reduced Guilt" Pizza Primavera in the frozen section.  It's a personal pizza for $1.99, and it's covered in eggplant, bell peppers, yellow squash and zucchini with a smattering of mozzerella cheese.  It's got a nice flavor of herbs and spices, and really fills you up with all those veggies - look at them! 

Cardio Week!

What a great weekend - spring is finally here!  We had temperatures in the high 80s, and it was absolutely gorgeous.  Another great piece of the weekend?  All this exercise is paying off, and I am FULL of energy!  I'm still sore, and my knees grumble at me when I stand after sitting too long, but otherwise I feel so good.  Like I'm filled with tiger blood.

I've been working hard at keeping my eating in check.  Saturday was a small hiccup, we had family over and they brought pizza (and chips, and cookies, and brownies, oh my!).  I kept my pizza intake to four skinny pieces over the course of the day (lunch and dinner), avoided the brownies, and just had a few chips.  I focused on family and conversation and chasing dogs around rather than all the food.  Last night's dinner was almost all veggies!  We broke out the grill, and I had grilled zucchini/peppers/mushrooms, a few small potatoes and some asparagus, and a delicious slice of homemade wheat bread.  Nice! 

I'm off to a good start for a great week - which just happens to be "Cardio Week" in my 10-week challenge.  Apparently all the punching/kicking/jumping/hopping/hurling/sprinting in place we've been doing the first three weeks don't count as "cardio".  I'm nervous for what this week will bring, we're to bring our kickboxing gloves every day as well as our mats (ab work evvey day, eek!).  I'm unsure if this is just the focus for this week, or if it will be a lot more cardio going forward.  I wouldn't mind if it is, since I know that's the way to burn off fat.  So far, while I feel stronger and more energetic, I haven't seen a lot of lost inches.  Things are starting to fit better, but I'm hoping the cardio will really start to shed some inches and pounds.

Woo hoo!  Hopefully I'm still able to type by next week!   

Week Two - And I'm Sick

Last week was week two of my challenge. 

It was a way wimpy week.

On Friday the 19th I came home with a scratchy, dry throat.  By Saturday morning, I was full-on sick.  I spent the entire weekend on the couch in a blanket cocoon, watching "Jersey Shore" reruns and occasionally calling out, "I'm dyyyyyying!", to anyone who would listen.  The dogs were greatly sympathetic and took post on the couch with me, occasionally licking my feet and my fingers (really their only method of comforting others).

I managed to make it to work on Monday, but I couldn't bring myself to exercise in front of people.  I knew it would involve a great deal of wheezing and hacking and sniffling, and I wouldn't want to be next to me in a gym.  I missed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - by Thursday, I was still sick, but I knew I couldn't miss another class.  So I trudged into my kickboxing class, all doped up on Sudafed and Robitussin. 

The class was rough - we had a pint-sized instructor, and she was whirling around the bags like a mini-Mike Tyson on speed.  Things had definitely increased in intensity during the second week, and I had been vacationing in Sofa City since last week.  I tried to imagine that I was punching and kicking my germs away, hehe. 

Friday was a lower body workout - the leg work isn't terrible, though my thighs and calves were trembling by the time we were done.  It's the ab work that nearly killed me.  Side planks, bicycles, none of those moves got any easier this time around. 

I'm still sick - I can't believe it's been over a week!  The cough has subsided a little bit, but I'm battling vertigo from all the congestion in my head. 

The good news is I have pretty much no appetite.  I can't taste anything, and the only thing that's appealing is chicken noodle soup.  I've eaten cans of Campbells for the majority of my meals over the last 10 days.  I'm sure my sodium intake is through the roof, but I'm keeping those calories down! 

Plyo-what-trics?

So I'm wrapping up my first week of this crazy 10-week exercise plan.  I was already sore after the assessment day on Monday, so I knew the rest of the week would be a treat!  After we ended the assessment, the instructor said, "Tomorrow is plyometrics.  It's the hardest workout, so drink lots of water and do lots of stretching."  Great.  Good idea.  Make the hardest workout on the first day.  It felt like college chemistry, where they try to weed out the dummies in the first week.  I was terrified.

I walked in Tuesday after work, all kitted out in my new Old Navy workout gear (cheap and they come in XXL).  One hour, 10 minute increments of intense cardio with 1 minute of rest in between.  I guess plyometrics is latin for "60 minutes of hell". 

The class involved a LOT of jumping.  Jumping in the air.  Let's just say it's not easy to vertically propel 330 pounds off the ground.  The jumping jacks were probably the worst.  While most people feel comfortable waving their hands in the air (like they just don't care), I kept mine firmly anchored next to my chest.  Despite two sports bras, my assets were not very secure with all the leaping around. 

The second worst exercise was the burpie.  What's a burpie, you may ask?  If you were involved in the sadistic torture of adolescents known as high school athletics, you're probably familiar.  For the rest of you, the burpie is an exercise that starts in a push-up pose.  You fling your feet back, do a push-up, tuck your legs back in, leap up in the air, then crouch down, fling your legs out, and do another push-up.  Rinse and repeat.  Or at least that's how it's supposed to go.  Mine look a little more like this:  slowly lower self to ground, struggle to do one push-up on knees, struggle back up to feet, hurl self a few inches off the ground, wipe sweat from brow, slowly lower self to ground, struggle into push-up position, lower self a few inches on shaking arms...you get the idea.  There's a reason I stay in the back of the room!

Wednesday was an upper body workout.  Kettlebells, push-ups, pathetic attempts at chin-ups, and a variety of ab exercises that made me want to weep.  I can crunch until the cows come home, but these workouts involved holding myself in very uncomfortable positions.  Planks, side planks, holding my legs in the air at odd angles.  I left that class with every muscle from my waist up shaking.  

Yesterday was kickboxing.  Now this one I really enjoyed.  We got wraps and gloves, and I went to town on that punching bag.  Jab, cross, hook, knee, roundhouse kick!  I felt like a fat and less-intense Chuck Norris.  

Today?  I am sore.  So sore.  It hurts to lower myself to the toilet.  The stairs make me want to cry.  But that must mean it's working, right?  Honestly, for all the kvetching, the feedback from my body is good.  Today is a lower body workout, and tomorrow I finish out the week with yoga.  I'm excited to see how much stronger I'll become over the next 9 weeks!    

 

Smooth Operator

My favorite breakfast was, is and always will be a delicious fruit smoothie.  A couple of years ago, I started a clean eating cleanse.  I purged sugar, alcohol, meat, dairy and even gluten from my diet for 21 days - I'm still not sure how I did it.  I'm convinced the only reason I was successful is because I wasn't married.  The husband wouldn't let me throw out all the milk and booze these days!  Anyway, it was during that time that I came up with my ultimate smoothie recipe.  With my super-duper workout schedule, I've decided to dust off the blender and bring it back - along with a few modifications.  The recipe is:

1 cup organic soy milk (any milk will do here, cow, soy, almond, etc.)
1 scoop vanilla EAS protein powder
1 banana
1/4 cup frozen unsweetened blueberries
1/2 cup frozen unsweetened strawberries

I start with the banana and the milk and blend until the banana chunks are gone and the milk is frothy.  Then add the protein powder and give the blender another punch.  Now you can add your frozen fruit, and blend until your smoothie is a delicious pinky/purple color.  This makes a pretty good serving - it fills my big pint glass and then some.  The protein powder is not my favorite, it adds a grainy texture to the smoothie - but I know I'll need it with the strain I'm putting on my muscles!  If you decide to do without the powder, I recommend about a tablespoon of agave nectar to sweeten things up a bit.  Yummy!

Now post intense workout, you might want a little energy boost to help you recover.  I like to do my Elvis special!  The recipe:

1 cup (ice cold) soy milk (again, any milk product will do)
1 scoop chocolate EAS protein powder
1 banana
1 scant tablespoon of natural peanut butter
1/4 cup of ice

Throw the ingredients in the blender until smooth and enjoy!  The ice measurement is a guesstimate - basically you just need a li'l somethin' somethin' to make this nice and cold.  Trust me, a room temperature smoothie is nothing but nasty.  Between the protein in the powder and the peanut butter and the potassium in the banana, your muscles will be singing your praises!  (**disclaimer - I am neither a nutritionist nor a dietician nor a trainer nor a person with any kind of special training or knowledge about sports nutrition.  Just saying.)

Before

Before shots from the safety of my powder room.