Stephany Writes

Categories: Healthy Living

It’s a Learning Process

It just sort of hit me out of the blue last week. I have to learn how to be healthy. I don’t know how to live a healthy lifestyle. It doesn’t come naturally to me. It feels hard and takes so much willpower every day. My mind is so consumed with food and choices and regrets. I feel like I’ve been at this for so long that I should just know it. I should be running half-marathons and killing it at boot camps and eating a healthy diet and breaking all of my unhealthy habits.

And I’m not. I’m constantly failing. I’m trying to take baby steps, but even those baby steps feel like too much. I have to go back to the very beginning. I have to start with the building blocks.

At its most basic level, losing weight is about two things: eating less and moving more. I’m typically awesome at the moving more part and bad at the eating less part. But, as the saying goes, you can’t out-exercise a bad diet and I am proof of that. I used to work out five days a week for an hour, at a moderate-to-high level, but wouldn’t eat as well as I should have been eating and my weight wouldn’t change. So then I decided I would cool it on the exercise and focus more on eating well. I wanted to be less focused on exercising so much and having that take up so much of my time and energy, and more focused on eating better.

Well, that brought me to where I am today. Heavier than I’ve ever been, someone who has lost that drive for exercise and eating right. On my way home from work the other day, I had this talk with myself about being uncomfortable. I can choose this sedentary, eat-whatever-I-want path that I’ve been on and be uncomfortable with my body and my energy levels and my inability to sleep. Or I can choose another path, an equally uncomfortable path, where I have to wake up early to exercise, learn how to curb cravings, and eat a consistently healthy diet. Both ways are uncomfortable. One way leads to more uncomfortableness and feeling bad about myself and the way I look. The other way leads to feeling better, looking better, and having more energy. Put it that way and it’s a no-brainer.

I failed at all the goals I set for myself last month. I rarely exercised, am still drinking more soda than I should be, and my sweets habit is out of control. So I’m going back to the very basics of losing weight. I need to learn how to be healthy and that comes from educating myself on what I’m putting in my body and getting back to a consistent exercise practice. I just need to take it one building block at a time, start from scratch and keep telling myself this is a learning process. Each day is a new day to learn how to be a healthier eater.

With that in mind, my goals for the next month are:

  • TRACK. I am not a fan of tracking my food, because it’s so tedious and time-consuming, but I doubt there are many people in this world who actually enjoy it. I will be using My Fitness Pal and aiming to try to use it at least six times a week to give me a better understanding of what I am eating and how it affects me. I’ll be sticking to the daily calorie, carb, sugar, protein, etc. limits MFP has given me as best I can.
  • EXERCISE. I am aiming for four days of exercise a week for 30 minutes at a time. It’s the same goal I had last month, and it’s just something I need to do. It’s not as if my schedule is so jam-packed that fitting 30 minutes of exercise four times a week is difficult, it’s just laziness. I press snooze too often in the morning and come up with excuses for why I can’t do it after work. I just need to get back in the habit of exercising.

That’s it. Two simple, easy goals that someone who has decided to get serious about losing weight and living healthier would give themselves.

I’ve been at this healthy living game that I feel like I should have my shit together by now. I should get it and I don’t. Not yet. So I have to start at the very beginning. I have to forget about how long I have been trying to lose weight, forget about all my past failed attempts and all the regrets I have and all the ways I have badmouthed myself for failing. I have to pretend like this is my very first time. Tracking my food, and learning to become an exerciser.

It’s a learning process. And I’m a stubborn learner who wants to have it all figured out right at the beginning. But I don’t and I need to stop pretending I do. I have to remember that slow and steady is the way to go, and to give myself grace when I mess up. The important part of losing weight is your will. The will to lose weight, the will to be healthy, the will to feel better. I so want to feel better, mentally and physically and emotionally. And if I need to go back to the very basics of losing weight to do that, then that’s what I have to do.

Categories: Healthy Living

Itty-Bitty Baby Steps

I haven’t written much about my healthy living journey on my blog for really the past year. I talked about my sugar detox and how I quit less than 12 hours in. I talked about going 30 days without drinking soda. I even decided to stop weighing myself on a weekly basis.

The truth of the matter is, not much progress has been made when it comes to my weight. Things have been really up and down for me. The only thing I seem to be doing right is drinking more water (my soda fast completely cured me of my dependence on soda!) and exercising. But I’m not exercising at the level I used to and I find myself reaching for soda more frequently, especially after a bad day or when I’m tired.

I haven’t wanted to write about what’s going on with me because I’ve written the same story time and time again. Trying and failing and trying and failing. Again and again and again and again. It’s the same old story and it’s so tiring to write about it. What more can I say? Losing weight is hard and changing your eating habits is hard and exercising is hard. It’s all just hard. And the thing is, yes, it is hard. But then if you keep going when it’s hard, push through the annoyances and the cravings and the I-don’t-wanna’s, it gets easier. One day, it won’t be as hard.

It’s the consistency that trips me up. It’s not having good habits for when I’m sad or tired or not feeling well. It’s not being strong enough.

When it comes right down to it, it’s not as if I’m eating unhealthy all the time. During the weekdays, I do pretty well. My breakfasts and lunches are healthy, my snacking is light. I drink lots of water. As for dinner, as long as I stick to my meal plan and make something at home, it’s healthy and filling. But then I go crazy on the weekends (starting on Friday, let’s be honest) and it’s like a free-for-all for three days straight. I barely drink water and I consume so much sugar and I overeat and it’s just bad. It’s so bad. It makes sleeping hard because my body is so ramped up on sugar and caffeine and excess food. It makes me feel lethargic and annoyed with myself.

So I need to put a plan in place. I don’t want to follow a strict diet. I don’t want to start restricting foods or food groups or only eating certain things. I don’t want to count calories or points or any of that. I know myself well enough now to know that system doesn’t work for me.

Losing weight is about two things: eating less and moving more. Eating less in the sense of portion control, less sugary food, less caloric beverages. And moving more in the sense of exercising on a consistent basis and taking more opportunities to be active in any way I can.

I can easily list my areas of weakness when it comes to healthy living and it’s with that in mind that I’ve devised a plan for myself. Taking those areas of weakness and building a way for me to turn them into areas of strength. I want to create actionable goals that hit on those areas and give me something to strive for. I am a goal-setter to my core and this kind of thing gets me motivated and inspired. If there is one thing I want more than anything in the world, it’s to finally lose this weight for good. I always feel a little strange saying something like that because it feels like such a shallow goal. But if you’ve never struggled with your weight, if you’ve never felt the pain that being overweight can bring, it’s hard to explain. There’s this feeling of failure and letting people down that I’ve carried with me for so long. I’m so tired of feeling like a failure. I’ve been trying to lose weight for years and nothing seems to work and it’s just time something does. It’s time I put in the effort and stop letting laziness or complacency stop me.

So, in the middle of every month, I will be talking about my healthy living journey. I will be creating three goals focused on my areas of weakness for me and spending all my focus and energy on them. They will be building blocks for my next goals.

My goals from mid-September to mid-October are as follows:

  • EXERCISE 4 times a week. Exercise is something I haven’t been consistent with for a long time now. My plan is to do 3 days of running (yes, I’m running again since I plan to run the Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving) and then trampoline cardio on Saturdays. I’ve been to two trampoline cardio classes and they have been so much fun. It works out your entire body and I leave each class sweaty with my arms and legs feeling like jello. At $10 a class, it’s not cheap but something I definitely want to keep in my workout schedule for as long as I can.
  • SNACK LESS. I have a real issue with snacking, especially on the weekends. I basically go crazy like I will never see sweets again. My plan is to allow myself one serving of ice cream once a day. Ice cream is not something that tempts me. I love ice cream, but it’s never been something I binge on. (Such as cookies or brownies or candy.) So I figure this is a good way to keep my snacking down to a minimum. Maybe it sounds like a lot to some of you (though I don’t think I will have it every single day) but it’s going to help me so much when it comes to how much I snack. It’s a way to still have something sweet, but not go overboard.
  • DRINK LESS SODA. My personal goal is to have it 3 times or less a week. Soda is such an area of weakness for me. I have to be mindful of how much I’m drinking and my cravings for it. I did think about going cold turkey off of soda, but I think limiting it makes more sense to me than a complete restriction.

It’s three itty-bitty goals to get me back on track and motivated to lose this weight for good. And more than that, to begin living a healthier lifestyle where I can learn better eating habits and choose better ways to deal with my emotions than through food. It’s not about taking gigantic leaps, because I’ve done that and then I fail and then I feel terrible about myself. Instead, I need to just focus on setting myself up for success by taking it piece by piece, slowly and steadily, with itty-bitty baby steps. Each itty-bitty step takes me that much closer to being the healthy and fit person I know I can be.

Categories: Healthy Living

A Confession

Here’s the deal: I didn’t complete my sugar detox.

I figure I should come right out and say the truth.

The truth is that no matter how hard you know something is going to be, you never really know until you’re deep in the trenches of it.

The truth is that after an entire day of eating bland food, the thought of heating up more bland chicken and more bland veggies made me want to throw up.

The truth is that my body wasn’t ready for this.

The truth is that when I decided to quit and days after the decision, I felt no guilt or shame.

Maybe these are all excuses. You could tell me how it was “only one day” and “I didn’t give my body time to adjust” and I would completely agree with you. You are right. I didn’t give my body time to get used to foods that weren’t chock-full of sugar and butter and savory goodness. I’m sure my body would have adjusted, given time.

But is it worth it to be completely miserable?

I don’t think so.

Maybe to some people, it is. I didn’t even get to the detox part of the detox – headaches and nausea and shakes and exhaustion. I didn’t even detox. I was just miserable about the food itself and how tasteless it was to me. The thought of facing four more days of food I hated along with detox symptoms made me completely miserable.

Our eating habits are intensely personal to each and every one of us. Not everyone has to be low sugar, or vegetarian, or a runner to lose weight. (This is a point Nicole stresses a lot. And, for the record, this post is in no way a criticism of her program. I still think it’s fantastic. It was just too much for me right now.) For me, I seem to do best when I’m exercising regularly (usually a lot of cardio) and tracking my food intake. When I’m making more home-cooked meals and treating myself every now and then.

And right now, I’m not as concerned as recognizing hidden sugars in foods. The truth is, I’m not overweight because of the hidden sugars in my pasta sauce, bread, and cereals. I’m overweight because I eat too many sugary snacks and baked goods, drink soda too often, and eat more of my meals out than in. I need to get a handle on that first.

So I didn’t finish the sugar detox. By 7:00 on Friday night, I threw in the towel. Some may call me weak, some may say I failed but there was this weight lifted off my shoulders, this happiness that wasn’t there before when I made the decision. The entire weekend, I checked in with myself and realized that I felt no guilt or shame or self-loathing about quitting. And that’s when I knew I made the right decision. It was the right decision for me, at this point in my life.

Right now, I need to take baby steps toward a more healthy life. Things like making more home-cooked meals, eating out less, drinking more water, exercising, and limiting sugary treats. I realized I’ve been trying to do it all at once. Fix every single broken piece of me and then I can lose weight and then I can be happy.

Slippery slope.

Slippery, slippery slope.

There is nothing wrong with me because I’m overweight. My weight holds no bearing over who I am as a person. I am still just as charming and delightful as I would be fifty pounds lighter. It’s something I constantly have to remind myself about and recognize I want to eat healthy for other benefits, not simply for weight loss. To be able to sleep better and have more energy and feel good. To lessen long-term health problems and have more endurance with my workouts.

Maybe one day I can successfully complete a sugar detox and feel good about it. This was just not my time and I’m okay with that. I feel happy about my decision to quit and, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if I finish a hardcore sugar detox or lose tons of pounds. All that matters is how I feel and today, I can say that I feel good.

Categories: Healthy Living

Throwing Away the Scale

I made the decision on Thursday night. I was eating dinner, thinking back on this past week and all the good things I had been doing when it comes to my health and fitness. Harder workouts, healthier meals, less snacking on processed sugar, more water, etc.

I came up with a long list of victories that could all vanish in a second if I were to step on the scale and it reads back to me a number I don’t like.

So that’s when I decided.

I was going to throw away my scale.

I feel like I’ve tried everything when it comes to losing weight. I haven’t followed any fad diets or gone on any crazy juicing fasts, but I’ve been doing it the old-fashioned way for so long. Eating less, moving more. Counting calories and points. Cutting out sugar and soda. Boot camps and gym memberships and spin classes. Stepping on the scale almost weekly. Up and down, up and down.

Nothing seems to work. Or perhaps it’s more appropriate to say, I haven’t been consistent with anything.

Weight Watchers works – if you use the program correctly.

Calorie counting works – if you’re honest about what you’re eating and consistent with it.

Right now, I’m not counting anything. I’m not even cutting anything out indefinitely. I am trying to eat intuitively and follow a 70/30 diet. (70% of the time, I eat healthy and 30% of the time I splurge.) While I have added soda back into my life after my 30-day fast, I only have it one or two times a week. I have drastically reduced how many sweets I have – limiting myself to 3 pieces of dark chocolate a day. I am trying to eat out less, make more healthy meals at home, and choose wisely when I do go out to eat. I am exercising on a consistent basis and trying to make each and every workout count. I want to sweat, I want to push my limits, I want sore muscles.

I feel good.

I feel really, really good.

I don’t feel deprived. I feel proud of my accomplishments. I feel like this is a sustainable way for me to live for a long, long time. I feel motivated and less inclined to “cheat”. And while it’s entirely possible I could step on the scale and it could show me a magical number that would motivate me even more, I don’t want my motivation to lie in a number. I want my motivation to come from a desire to be healthy.

I want to stop depending on the scale to tell me if I have had a good week or a bad week.

I do plan on taking my measurements on a monthly basis, especially as I go through another round of Best Body Bootcamp. But I want to use other measurements to define how I am improving with my health: the way my jeans fit, lifting heavier weights, being able to do more than 10 burpees at a time, the way I feel when I look in the mirror.

The scale has been such a big part of my life – such a motivator and a deterrent for me – that it’s going to be hard to let it go and just motivate myself through other means. But I also think it’s going to help me to stop focusing on eating better and exercising just to lose weight and be skinny, but to do it because it makes me feel good.

Do you have a healthy or unhealthy relationship with the scale?

Categories: Healthy Living

Best Body Bootcamp: A Review

I’ve been around the boot camp block a few times.

My first experience was with a boot camp at the gym I belonged to at the time. As new members, my mom and I got a discount on the 8-week program so we signed up. Her excited, me apprehensive. And while the workouts were intense and kicked my butt, the trainers were terrible. Between getting reprimanded for taking a too-long water break (which I swear wasn’t longer than a minute) to being told it didn’t matter if we came back because we’d already paid to being called out at the end of boot camp because I’d improved the least… well, let’s just say I didn’t have the best view of boot camp after that.

My next experience was a billion, trillion, zillion times better. My mom and I snatched up a Living Social deal for a boot camp run by former Tampa Bay Bucs running back, Michael Pittman. It was once a week for a little over an hour and it was a great experience. The workouts were intense but the trainers were so encouraging and helpful. There was no yelling, no screaming, no belittling. Unfortunately, a few months into the boot camp, Michael moved to California leaving the boot camp in the hands of the trainers. It just wasn’t the same after that and my mom and I stopped going.

My third boot camp experience was also a good one, and it helped me to see that most trainers are encouraging and helpful and supportive. They want to see you succeed. The first boot camp was an anomaly, and I wish I had reported their belittling ways now that I look back on it. I thought I was being too sensitive at the time.

So then one of my favorite healthy living bloggers, Tina Reale, started hosting an online boot camp. Three rounds went by and I kept telling myself I should join, but never had the guts to actually sign up. Finally, I decided what better way to start off the new year than by participating in round four of Best Body Bootcamp?

I am so, so glad I decided to bite the bullet and sign up! I plan on making these boot camp workouts a regular part of my fitness routine – as long as Tina continues to host them. First of all, I wish, wish, wish I could have Tina as an actual trainer because I’m sure she would be awesome to work with. She’d kick my butt, no doubt about it, but do it in a positive and encouraging way. 

Here’s the thing. It’s an 8-week program for $25. I challenge you to find a boot camp that offers a better deal than this! It’s really such a steal for all the work Tina puts into these boot camps. Every two weeks, Tina sends out an email that includes two weeks of planned workouts. This includes three boot camp workouts and suggested cardio, as well as a flexible training schedule to follow. Tina also suggests making two weekly goals related to health and fitness. And she’s always around for help and guidance, should you need it. To further enhance your workout experience, make sure to invest in comfortable and supportive leggings.

If you’re still hesitant about signing up for an online boot camp, I’m going to give you five reasons why you should join in.

1. The workouts change every two weeks. You’ll never be bored by working out again!

The one thing I need in a fitness program is change. I get bored easily, which causes me to skip workouts. The best part of BBB is the fact that every other week, Tina sends out a new workout program. They get progressively harder as the weeks go by, and are all so different from each other. You’re not doing the same moves every week, or even the way the workouts are set up changes so it really challenges your body. Tina also links to Youtube videos that show proper form for each move, and she’s always around to answer questions if you need it. Getting an email with new workouts was always like getting a little present. I loved seeing what she was going to come up with next!

2. Accountability, which can lead to some awesome prizes.

Accountability is key, especially for me. At the beginning of BBB, Tina sends every participant a Google Doc spreadsheet (shared between only you and Tina) to keep track of how many days we exercised, as well as how we did with our weekly goals each day. There are four ways to enter into the weekly cash drawings: marking off five days of exercise, completing five days of either of the two goals set previously, or sharing about the workouts either through blogging, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Some weeks, I would have 4 entries in to the drawing and some weeks, I would have none. It all depends on how much effort you put into your workouts and health goals.

There’s also a crazy awesome grand prize at the end that gives you all the motivation you need to get the workouts in and the goals completed.

Admittedly, I didn’t hit my goals or workouts every week but it only gives me more motivation to do better in Round 5 so I can get into the cash drawings more frequently! (And, um, lose weight/feel better, of course. Ha!)

There is also a Facebook group and Twitter chats to help you feel involved. I didn’t use either (I completely forgot about BOTH Twitter chats. Darn!) but I hope to be a more active participant in the next round.

3. There are modifications for all levels.

Whether you need more of a challenge, less of a challenge, or you’re at home without gym equipment to use, Tina’s got you covered. She includes a detailed modifications chart for each workout to help if needed. Consider the possibility of acquiring or utilizing second hand gym equipment if you’re in need. Since I do my workouts at home and only have two sets of free weights and an exercise ball, sometimes I need the modifications. And believe me, the at-home modifications are just as tough. I always ended every workout feeling sweaty and accomplished. (There were a few times I even collapsed on the floor at the end of the workout, hearing Bob Harper say in my head, “THAT was your Last Chance Workout.” Yes, they are that intense!)

4. This is a program designed for the user, not for the trainer.

There is so much flexibility within the program. Tina gives a weekly schedule that participants can follow, but it’s not a requirement to follow it to the tee. It’s up to you how you want your program to look. If you only want to do two days of workouts and three days of running – totally fine! The program is designed to fit into your life. You don’t have to change everything you’re doing to fit the program.

5. Tina puts her heart and soul into these boot camps, and it shows.

If you’ve ever read her blog, you know Tina is passionate about healthy living and fitness. She brings all that passion with her to BBB. She puts a lot of time and effort into these programs. And not just in creating the workouts, but all the administrative work that goes into hosting these boot camps. I think she had over 600 participants in this past boot camp, so you can imagine all the work that goes into making sure everyone is set up and ready to go, and then keeping up with everyone throughout the program. She’s passionate about these boot camps, and it’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement.

So what are you waiting for? Go sign up for Round 5! It’s just $25 until March 29th and I promise you will not regret signing up. It’s absolutely, 100% worth it.