Thursday:
I had a much better night - didn't keep myself awake coughing! - and this morning I did some thinking before I got out of bed.
The food plan I am on (designed to fix blood sugar levels) is quite strict and prescriptive, and I often fall short of perfection. You could argue (I don't mean you personally, but it seemed odd to use "one could argue") that it would be better to try a more flexible plan that is easier to stick too. Some people like to aim so low that they cannot fail, then they can build on that good feeling. But I prefer to aim high. Then even when I have slips and stumbles, I still achieve high.
It's like if I was still at school and doing regular tests and quizzes. Should I plan to get 50% and then be happy with that because I hit my goal? Or perhaps fail to achieve even that goal, as I might if I was being so casual about it? No! I aim for 100% and try hard. But when I get 90% I'm still happy. I'm not perfect, and that is a good score. Not getting 100% every day doesn't mean I've failed.
That doesn't mean I can aim for 90% as being more realistic. I still have to aim for 100% to get 90%.
I am losing weight on this diet. I need to keep aiming for perfection, but being ok with getting a few things wrong.
The other thought that followed on for this is that life is not pass/fail. A healthy diet is not pass/fail. You CAN fail a diet if you repeatedly eat all the stuff you shouldn't. But a few mistakes is not an automatic F for the whole diet, or the rest of your life. Maybe I got an A on Monday and Tuesday and a C yesterday. I didn't plunge into binging and I still ate healthy food for two of my meals.
Moving on to today, while eating my healthy breakfast I read an article in New Scientist about whether or not we need breakfast. The answer seemed to be "maybe"! If you eat breakfast, you eat more in total over the whole day, but you also move more. If you don't eat breakfast, you eat a little more at lunch time but not enough to compensate, and you unconsciously move around less so burn off less calories. Breakfast or no breakfast had no effect on weight loss. They suggested that if you were going to be very sedentary and didn't need to think much, like sitting on a plane all morning, then it would be fine to skip breakfast. But children didn't do as well at school without breakfast, so you might need it as brain food. And eating breakfast seemed to help future diabetes outcomes. Overall it sounded like it's better to eat breakfast.
But what should we be eating for breakfast? The idea of cereal being a healthy start to the day, and later of bacon and eggs making a great breakfast, were from marketing campaigns (Mr Kellogg and the pork industry respectively) so have little basis in reality. The article just said that more study was needed on this part. I'm sticking to protein plus fruit/veges.
What I ate today:
B: roast beef, cucumber, tea (back to no sugar).
L: half a steak, roast vegetables.
S: cheese and cashews.
D: spicy chicken, broccoli, cucumber.
Showing posts with label goal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goal. Show all posts
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Monday, April 20, 2015
Trying again
Monday:
Ah, Monday. Another new week with a clean slate and no mistakes yet.
I think it's a good idea to tackle one health aspect at a time. But I need to start on diet, right now. My weight is not just back to where it started (again), it is up and over. All the other health aspects support weight loss but diet is the one that has the real effect. And I am too unhappy at this weight to continue leaving it until I get other things under control.
It's school holidays with kids home, my dad is probably visiting this week, we have to visit Sydney soon, yeah there is no such thing as a perfect time to start. It is always hard. I have to do it anyway.
I feel a bit paralysed, partly because every single diet plan contradicts every other one, which makes choosing hard. I like some guidelines and structure, so just counting calories isn't enough for me I think, but not too prescriptive about exactly what to eat each meal or cutting out whole food groups. Low carb makes me lose weight, but also messes with my brain. I ended up choosing carb cycling. It was that or stay frozen in indecision forever.
But the real problem is not so much that, it is fear of failure. Again. I dread the thought of making a promise to myself, in front of you all as witnesses, to commit to something and then in a week, or two days, or maybe by the end of today breaking that promise and failing again. So this is what I am going to do. A little promise. Not a weak promise, but a short time-period promise.
Two weeks, or rather a little over two weeks. My next dietbet weigh in is 6 May, the Wednesday, with a 48 hour window. Until I officially weigh in for month three, I will stick to carb cycling. It is only 16 days. I am not expecting to win this month's stage of my dietbet. I doubt I can lose more than 6 kg by then! That is not my goal. I am not in total control of how much weight I lose, anyway. But I can 100% control what I put in my mouth.
If you haven't heard of carb cycling it alternates low carb days with high carb days ("high carb" is a bit of a misnomer, more like moderate carb days). Every day you have some carbs at breakfast, but the rest of the day (eating five times over the day) is either low carb/high fat or high carb/low fat. And protein with every meal and snack. I'll be doing the turbo cycle which is L/L/H/L/L/H/freeday. The idea is that you get the benefit of eating low carb but without the depression and lack of energy that comes with it, because you still have some at breakfast and every third day. And a free day once a week so you don't feel deprived. I tried it once before but gave up after a couple of weeks when I wasn't getting the results I wanted. But I think I was a bit too free on my free day. In any case, I am giving it another try. If I'm not happy with it after 16 days, I will chose something else, but I'm giving it a fair trial. That is my commitment to myself.
I've been noticing my body's response to various breakfasts. On a few days I've had just bacon (and a cup of tea), two rashers, nothing else. And I'm not hungry until lunchtime and could even consider having lunch later than the dot of 12. On days when I have mainly carbs, like oatmeal or toast, I feel full for a little while and then hungry. Two hours after breakfast I want to raid the kitchen for whatever I can find. Definitely need a morning snack. It makes such a difference. Yet I don't think bacon every day is a healthy lifestyle. And is it the protein that is filling me up or the carbs that are making me crave? Today I had one bacon rasher, one egg, plus one toast. And I was easily full until lunchtime. So I can have that slice of toast as long as I have plenty of protein with it. Which fits well with carb cycling, luckily.
Tim took the car today because it was stormy (with a wind warning) and I didn't want him to ride, so the kids and I were stuck at home. They did some painting, I did some Fantasia in a lacklustre sort of way, I let the kids watch a movie on Foxtel. It certainly has come in handy these cold rainy holidays! Foxtel and homemade popcorn.
I've been wearing a fleecy vest for a couple of weeks now, but today for the first time I put a jumper on. Even with the heating on, it's not very warm in here. The vest had the benefit of a high collar - I can't wait for my hair to grow long enough to keep my neck warm! Chilly. At the moment I need either a high collar or a scarf.
Report card:
Diet: Good. I stuck to the plan, but ended up having more calories than I think is right, by about 100. No big splurge, but things like nuts and steak added up over the day. Might need to reduce portion sizes a bit.
Exercise: Good. Very tired today even though I had a good night's sleep, really would have preferred to be napping but I sleep-walked through some gentle exercise. I'm ok with that, at least I did it.
Water: Fantastic.
Sleep: Great. Don't know why I'm so sleepy today. Maybe the cold weather?
Mental health: Resigned.
Ah, Monday. Another new week with a clean slate and no mistakes yet.
I think it's a good idea to tackle one health aspect at a time. But I need to start on diet, right now. My weight is not just back to where it started (again), it is up and over. All the other health aspects support weight loss but diet is the one that has the real effect. And I am too unhappy at this weight to continue leaving it until I get other things under control.
It's school holidays with kids home, my dad is probably visiting this week, we have to visit Sydney soon, yeah there is no such thing as a perfect time to start. It is always hard. I have to do it anyway.
I feel a bit paralysed, partly because every single diet plan contradicts every other one, which makes choosing hard. I like some guidelines and structure, so just counting calories isn't enough for me I think, but not too prescriptive about exactly what to eat each meal or cutting out whole food groups. Low carb makes me lose weight, but also messes with my brain. I ended up choosing carb cycling. It was that or stay frozen in indecision forever.
But the real problem is not so much that, it is fear of failure. Again. I dread the thought of making a promise to myself, in front of you all as witnesses, to commit to something and then in a week, or two days, or maybe by the end of today breaking that promise and failing again. So this is what I am going to do. A little promise. Not a weak promise, but a short time-period promise.
Two weeks, or rather a little over two weeks. My next dietbet weigh in is 6 May, the Wednesday, with a 48 hour window. Until I officially weigh in for month three, I will stick to carb cycling. It is only 16 days. I am not expecting to win this month's stage of my dietbet. I doubt I can lose more than 6 kg by then! That is not my goal. I am not in total control of how much weight I lose, anyway. But I can 100% control what I put in my mouth.
If you haven't heard of carb cycling it alternates low carb days with high carb days ("high carb" is a bit of a misnomer, more like moderate carb days). Every day you have some carbs at breakfast, but the rest of the day (eating five times over the day) is either low carb/high fat or high carb/low fat. And protein with every meal and snack. I'll be doing the turbo cycle which is L/L/H/L/L/H/freeday. The idea is that you get the benefit of eating low carb but without the depression and lack of energy that comes with it, because you still have some at breakfast and every third day. And a free day once a week so you don't feel deprived. I tried it once before but gave up after a couple of weeks when I wasn't getting the results I wanted. But I think I was a bit too free on my free day. In any case, I am giving it another try. If I'm not happy with it after 16 days, I will chose something else, but I'm giving it a fair trial. That is my commitment to myself.
I've been noticing my body's response to various breakfasts. On a few days I've had just bacon (and a cup of tea), two rashers, nothing else. And I'm not hungry until lunchtime and could even consider having lunch later than the dot of 12. On days when I have mainly carbs, like oatmeal or toast, I feel full for a little while and then hungry. Two hours after breakfast I want to raid the kitchen for whatever I can find. Definitely need a morning snack. It makes such a difference. Yet I don't think bacon every day is a healthy lifestyle. And is it the protein that is filling me up or the carbs that are making me crave? Today I had one bacon rasher, one egg, plus one toast. And I was easily full until lunchtime. So I can have that slice of toast as long as I have plenty of protein with it. Which fits well with carb cycling, luckily.
Tim took the car today because it was stormy (with a wind warning) and I didn't want him to ride, so the kids and I were stuck at home. They did some painting, I did some Fantasia in a lacklustre sort of way, I let the kids watch a movie on Foxtel. It certainly has come in handy these cold rainy holidays! Foxtel and homemade popcorn.
I've been wearing a fleecy vest for a couple of weeks now, but today for the first time I put a jumper on. Even with the heating on, it's not very warm in here. The vest had the benefit of a high collar - I can't wait for my hair to grow long enough to keep my neck warm! Chilly. At the moment I need either a high collar or a scarf.
Report card:
Diet: Good. I stuck to the plan, but ended up having more calories than I think is right, by about 100. No big splurge, but things like nuts and steak added up over the day. Might need to reduce portion sizes a bit.
Exercise: Good. Very tired today even though I had a good night's sleep, really would have preferred to be napping but I sleep-walked through some gentle exercise. I'm ok with that, at least I did it.
Water: Fantastic.
Sleep: Great. Don't know why I'm so sleepy today. Maybe the cold weather?
Mental health: Resigned.
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
April resolution
Wednesday:
Whenever I think about making resolutions I want to cover every aspect of life. I start with making one but then think of a million more. I promise to eat perfectly/exercise every day/drink enough/write every day/keep a perfectly clean house/be a perfect wife and mother and person etc. But I am going to make one - only one - resolution for April. I am going to use my CPAP every night this month. The only acceptable excuse is sickness, like the very runny nose I've just got over or nausea (which is made worse by air blowing up my nose, for some reason). No other excuse will do. Not travelling (the CPAP is portable), not "it's too hot" (luckily nights are getting cooler here) and certainly not "can't be bothered".
Sleep is the foundation, for me, for everything else. When I'm tired I made poor choices, I give in to food cravings, I don't want to exercise, I can't think clearly to write creatively, I get snappy and irritable and unhappy. And, of course, sleep apnoea is dangerous for my health. When I get more sleep, everything else is much easier. So why do I ever resist wearing it? Because I have enough trouble getting to sleep even without having something strapped to my face, because it was very sweaty all through summer, because I can be lazy and want to avoid unpleasantness in the now even though it has bad consequences.
But this is my promise to myself. I will wear it every night in April. The sleep part of my report card will be about how well I do on this front - how long I keep it on during the night.
I will still be working on all my other goals. But sleep is my primary objective.
I forgot to weigh myself this morning, I usually use Wednesday as my weekly weigh-in. There is less than a week to go on this month's dietbet and there is no chance I will meet the goal, but I am not letting that worry me. Just forging on towards next month.
I went for two short walks today (total about half an hour). I still found it a bit tiring and my heart rate went up more than it usually would for a short stroll, but better than yesterday. And my resting heart rate is back down to normal, it's been way up all week just sitting around. I'll keep just doing a little more each day, not too strenuous yet. Feeling much better.
Report card:
Diet: Ok. Still having an afternoon slump, when I get tired, and I eat my way through it.
Exercise: Good.
Water: Poor.
Sleep (last night): Ok.
Mental health: Good.
Whenever I think about making resolutions I want to cover every aspect of life. I start with making one but then think of a million more. I promise to eat perfectly/exercise every day/drink enough/write every day/keep a perfectly clean house/be a perfect wife and mother and person etc. But I am going to make one - only one - resolution for April. I am going to use my CPAP every night this month. The only acceptable excuse is sickness, like the very runny nose I've just got over or nausea (which is made worse by air blowing up my nose, for some reason). No other excuse will do. Not travelling (the CPAP is portable), not "it's too hot" (luckily nights are getting cooler here) and certainly not "can't be bothered".
Sleep is the foundation, for me, for everything else. When I'm tired I made poor choices, I give in to food cravings, I don't want to exercise, I can't think clearly to write creatively, I get snappy and irritable and unhappy. And, of course, sleep apnoea is dangerous for my health. When I get more sleep, everything else is much easier. So why do I ever resist wearing it? Because I have enough trouble getting to sleep even without having something strapped to my face, because it was very sweaty all through summer, because I can be lazy and want to avoid unpleasantness in the now even though it has bad consequences.
But this is my promise to myself. I will wear it every night in April. The sleep part of my report card will be about how well I do on this front - how long I keep it on during the night.
I will still be working on all my other goals. But sleep is my primary objective.
I forgot to weigh myself this morning, I usually use Wednesday as my weekly weigh-in. There is less than a week to go on this month's dietbet and there is no chance I will meet the goal, but I am not letting that worry me. Just forging on towards next month.
I went for two short walks today (total about half an hour). I still found it a bit tiring and my heart rate went up more than it usually would for a short stroll, but better than yesterday. And my resting heart rate is back down to normal, it's been way up all week just sitting around. I'll keep just doing a little more each day, not too strenuous yet. Feeling much better.
Report card:
Diet: Ok. Still having an afternoon slump, when I get tired, and I eat my way through it.
Exercise: Good.
Water: Poor.
Sleep (last night): Ok.
Mental health: Good.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Diet buddy
Sunday evening:
A friend of mine texted me tonight that she is starting a new health regime tomorrow (Monday always feels like a fresh start, doesn't it) and was looking for a diet buddy. I was already planning to start (again) so I said I would. She wants to lose 10kg in 2 months - I assume that is all she needs to lose, she isn't very overweight - but I am going to aim for 5kg in 2 months which I think is more achievable. Also I have 25kg to lose so I need to be in for the long haul.
I think having someone to be accountable to will help.
The plan is the basic idea of reducing junk food and exercising more. I have been very slack on both fronts all year so far. The only thing I've been doing well is increasing my water intake, and that is probably because of the extreme heat here. I've actually been really thirsty, which is unusual for me.
I've decided to get up half an hour early and do half an hour exercise, a minimum of four days a week (I have one early uni morning so not that day). And be more active on the weekends as well.
I've had heartburn nearly every evening this week, annoying. Not sure why, eating the same things as usual. And the clammy night sweats are increasing, even on cool nights. Hello peri-menopause. All the more reason to get control of my weight now. It only gets harder from here on.
A friend of mine texted me tonight that she is starting a new health regime tomorrow (Monday always feels like a fresh start, doesn't it) and was looking for a diet buddy. I was already planning to start (again) so I said I would. She wants to lose 10kg in 2 months - I assume that is all she needs to lose, she isn't very overweight - but I am going to aim for 5kg in 2 months which I think is more achievable. Also I have 25kg to lose so I need to be in for the long haul.
I think having someone to be accountable to will help.
The plan is the basic idea of reducing junk food and exercising more. I have been very slack on both fronts all year so far. The only thing I've been doing well is increasing my water intake, and that is probably because of the extreme heat here. I've actually been really thirsty, which is unusual for me.
I've decided to get up half an hour early and do half an hour exercise, a minimum of four days a week (I have one early uni morning so not that day). And be more active on the weekends as well.
I've had heartburn nearly every evening this week, annoying. Not sure why, eating the same things as usual. And the clammy night sweats are increasing, even on cool nights. Hello peri-menopause. All the more reason to get control of my weight now. It only gets harder from here on.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Training Goals
more Saturday:
I just signed up for a 5K (the Canberra Times fun run) -- my first 5K. So now I have two things to train for.
The Verti-cool Challenge, a 403 stair race up Telstra Tower, is on 24 March -- 4 weeks from tomorrow. As I have no continuous set of stairs to train on, it is very difficult to set a realistic goal based on my current knowledge. I nearly died doing up + down in under 10 minutes yesterday, but I should be fitter than that by race day (and won't have any "down" to worry about). I plan to be. I looked up last year's results and the winner did it in 2:47. OMG, right? The first woman (12th place overall) took 3:26. She probably wasn't over 40, but who knows. The first 100 or so people did it in 5:00 or less. So that is my goal, 5:00. That may be unrealistic, I just don't know. It is something to aim for.
To train for it I will use the library steps again at least once a week, plus climb Mt Ainslie (only 50 or so stairs, but lots and lots of "up") with Caroline on Saturdays. Which means I may never get around to doing Parkrun on Saturday mornings, but I'd rather climb with my friend. If she can't go some weeks I could do Parkrun then.
The Fun Run is on 13 April, so I have 7 weeks for that. I am going to start up my C25K training again, this afternoon I organised with a friend to run at the local oval two mornings a week, getting out of bed a bit earlier than usual. He is much fitter than me (like most people!) and has even run a marathon but we'll just be doing laps of the oval so we don't have to be going at the same pace. It's just nice to have a companion to make sure you get up and do it, and keep you company.
Unfortunately we have storms forcast all week so I'm not sure how that is going to go.
I had a look at my C25K app to see how many weeks the training course was (it's 9, I only have 7 -- and only plan to do two days a week not three, but then I don't expect to run the whole 5K) and it's been so long since I'd done it a suggestion came up that I start again from the beginning! I'd only done the first two days anyway, so I didn't have that much fitness to lose.
Last year's results for this particular fun run included the first woman in my age group of 40-49 (91st overall) with a time of 23:48. Since my best ever time is about 52 minutes, and I still can't run eight 1-minute intervals in a row, I don't expect to get anywhere near that time. I have seven weeks to train so of course I will get better ... I'll set a goal closer to the time but atm I think 40 mins would be pretty good for me.
And on in-between days, I'll keep on dancing at home!
I just signed up for a 5K (the Canberra Times fun run) -- my first 5K. So now I have two things to train for.
The Verti-cool Challenge, a 403 stair race up Telstra Tower, is on 24 March -- 4 weeks from tomorrow. As I have no continuous set of stairs to train on, it is very difficult to set a realistic goal based on my current knowledge. I nearly died doing up + down in under 10 minutes yesterday, but I should be fitter than that by race day (and won't have any "down" to worry about). I plan to be. I looked up last year's results and the winner did it in 2:47. OMG, right? The first woman (12th place overall) took 3:26. She probably wasn't over 40, but who knows. The first 100 or so people did it in 5:00 or less. So that is my goal, 5:00. That may be unrealistic, I just don't know. It is something to aim for.
To train for it I will use the library steps again at least once a week, plus climb Mt Ainslie (only 50 or so stairs, but lots and lots of "up") with Caroline on Saturdays. Which means I may never get around to doing Parkrun on Saturday mornings, but I'd rather climb with my friend. If she can't go some weeks I could do Parkrun then.
The Fun Run is on 13 April, so I have 7 weeks for that. I am going to start up my C25K training again, this afternoon I organised with a friend to run at the local oval two mornings a week, getting out of bed a bit earlier than usual. He is much fitter than me (like most people!) and has even run a marathon but we'll just be doing laps of the oval so we don't have to be going at the same pace. It's just nice to have a companion to make sure you get up and do it, and keep you company.
Unfortunately we have storms forcast all week so I'm not sure how that is going to go.
I had a look at my C25K app to see how many weeks the training course was (it's 9, I only have 7 -- and only plan to do two days a week not three, but then I don't expect to run the whole 5K) and it's been so long since I'd done it a suggestion came up that I start again from the beginning! I'd only done the first two days anyway, so I didn't have that much fitness to lose.
Last year's results for this particular fun run included the first woman in my age group of 40-49 (91st overall) with a time of 23:48. Since my best ever time is about 52 minutes, and I still can't run eight 1-minute intervals in a row, I don't expect to get anywhere near that time. I have seven weeks to train so of course I will get better ... I'll set a goal closer to the time but atm I think 40 mins would be pretty good for me.
And on in-between days, I'll keep on dancing at home!
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