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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Can You Focus on This Article?

So I was reading this article on MSN where they interviewed Jillian Michael's about her new show where she lives with families, flips their world up-side-down and helps show them the "healthy" way. Seriously...can you really focus on the article with DiGiorno Deep Dish Pizza surrounding an interview about healthy eating and transforming the dietary lives of people? I gained 5 pounds just looking at the screen...

Happy Wednesday.

Fat Tuesday Recap ... Emotional vs. Physical Hunger

It was a bad day folks in the soup de jour department but a break through in the emotional eating department. Yesterday was a good and bad day. Good because there is a lot going on in my life right now I am excited about, bad because I feel like I can do better and haven't when it comes to this weight loss journey (I know so vague). One thing I never really thought about until recently is the disaster that can happen when food and emotions mix. I got to thinking that we eat when we are happy, we eat when we are sad, we eat when we feel nothing at all, we eat when we are stressed and why is that? In my quest to feed my need for knowledge I came across an article in Today's Diet and Nutrition about emotional hunger vs. physical hunger.


I've noticed I do two things when emotions come into play in my diet: I either eat or I don't eat. Weird right? Most emotions and celebrations involve food - a graduation, a party, showers, funerals. Even rewards can be centered around food when we do well and excel at something. When we are kids and we get hurt sometimes we are given a Popsicle or ice cream to sooth in our comforting. How do we break a learned behavior such as emotional eating?

As I've learned throughout this journey so far you have choices. Choices for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Choices for exercising. Choices for if today you will put off what you should've done yesterday. Choice to eat balance meals or skip a meal here and there. I wish I had a new word for choices, and options really isn't that much better! These choices are at times dependent on the situations we find ourselves in daily. For example, if we have a bad day at work we have a choice to take that day home with us or leave it in the office. How we deal with that bad day is when emotions come into play. I don't know about you but when I use to have a bad day in the office I would eat, go home and site on my couch and let that day fester until I decided I was ready for bed. Most times I was so busy at work I wouldn't eat and when I got home I would eat whatever I could, and eat to the point where it would hurt. Yup hurt. Not emotionally but physically. It's not the best feeling in the world folks, I don't recommend it!

Now the question becomes what is the solution to these learned emotional behaviors that have lasted all these years, that have been there through thick and thin and that I've relied on so much through good and bad times? For one, it's finding other ways to deal with these emotions instead of dealing with them through the use of food. For example, instead of taking out your bad day in the office out on your fridge, take it out in the gym, the sidewalk, reading...the list is endless. I've been making a list of all the things I CAN do: go for a walk, create a piece of artwork, sketch up a new jewelry design. And while this is going to take some time to get use to, it's necessary to. I can't let my emotions get the best of me because I worked too damn hard to be where I'm at today. I don't want to walk down that path again, so something has to change!

Sorry for the one way ticket to Debbie Downerville. It's all part of this journey I suppose, and whether or not I like it, I'm going to have to deal with it. Hope all is well with everyone! Keep fighting the good fight everyone...WE ARE IN IT TO WIN IT!

Friday, June 18, 2010

Jackie Knows Fat the Best?

So Jackie Warner, celebrity trainer and star of the Bravo (non-hit) series "Workout," just dropped this book. Apparently she knows why I'm fat and she will teach me the ways of getting thin for life. I like Jackie Warner, I've seen her show, I've seen the results she has helped people achieve, and from what I've read this book has gotten mixed reviews. Not only for the content inside, which apparently it doesn't tell you anything different than anything us weight watchers don't know, but it's also getting flack for using the "F" word.
(side note: I should probably read the book for my own assessment and I plan to do that after pay day next week...book review to follow).

My fellow bloggers over Fit Bottom Girls posted this about the book. I have to agree with Jenn on some of her points. The use of the word "fat" is definitely sensationalized on this cover, and many will buy this book and be forever changed by Jackie and her fitness knowledge. After reading the article I started thinking about the "F" word, how I use it and how I hear it used around me. Back in the day the word use to make me uncomfortable, so much I would feel sick at the sound of hearing it. No one wants to be called names, especially the "F" word. The "F" word is like an elephant in the room ... everybody sees it, everybody is thinking it, and some may even say it. Some how over the years I suppose I've embraced the word to the point it doesn't bother me. Maybe I've become desensitized by it, maybe I see it for it is, or maybe it's just always "there."

I will admit, I jokingly use that word when I talk about myself, and I probably shouldn't do that, but I'm fat so I can, right? Probably not, but it comes with the territory of being the funny, fat girl I suppose. But does the fact that I use that word referring to myself reflect poorly on me? Some say it might, but I never viewed it like that because that's what I do but maybe I should start viewing it as a poor reflection on my views of myself. The way I talk about myself sometimes I would never talk to a best friend, my sister, or family member like that.

From this point on I vow not to use the "F" word when I talk about myself, because in all honesty I don't view myself as that word and the negative connotations that can come with it. So good bye fat...HELLO phat :)

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Evolution of Weight Loss (and gain)

I've been slacking lately...not only on my blogging, and my accountability, but on my healthy eating. No excuse I know because slacking is partly the cause of my demise a year ago. My workouts lately have been sporadic. I've only been averaging three workouts a week versus the six that I was doing, and with summer travel and meetings it is getting harder to fit it in. I find myself consuming empty calories of coffee and an occasional carbonated beverage, which I haven't drank consistently in over a year, but somehow over the past month they've crept their sneaky way back into my life. I know that this is just a tiny, minuet bump in the road, but I don't feel very good about it. How can the one thing that I have control over suddenly go out of control? While I encourage those on their wellness journey, I sometimes forget that I too need to encourage myself, and keep up with all the blood, sweat and tears that got me to this very point.

So in order to remind myself that, baby, I've come along way I would like to present to you the Evolution of Weight Loss and Weight Gain (aka The Evolution from fat to phat). This starts all the way back my first summer in Cleveland in 2008 up to May 2010. As you can see my butt wasn't the only thing that was expanding...look at that hair!?


To my readers, supporters and fellow weight loss aficionados:
How do you fit in your healthy life style when life goes hay wire? What are your secrets to your success?

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The Exception to the Rule

Rules: some say they were meant to be broken, others follow them religiously and some are the "exception" to it. When it comes to weight loss is there the exception to the rule? This all started a couple weeks ago when I was watching "he's just not that into you" and I started thinking about exceptions to rules. For example, you can wear white except for white shoes after Labor Day; The 'i before e' except when after 'c' rule when writing; at my job we have casual Fridays for the three summer months where you can wear what you wear during the week with the exception that you can wear khaki's but you can't wear anything "casual" (no jeans, no tank tops, no casual business shorts...); when you think about all the exceptions to rules you might as well have a handbook about them and throw colored little flags if you are causing any offense to them.


 
I started thinking about all the rules that "are a given" when losing weight:
  • Eat fruits and veggies
  • 8 glasses of water a day
  • Adding more fiber to your diet
  • Exercise at least 30 minutes a day for three days
  • Wheat and whole grains
  • Limited quantities of complex sugars and carbs
  • Incorporating additional protein to diet
  • Eliminating soda beverages or replacing them with "diet" ones
  • Limiting sodium and fat intake
  • Limit intake of alcohol
  • Portion control and moderation

 
I started thinking of all the "exceptions to the rules" to losing weight:
  • Food restriction
  • Dietary supplements
  • Diet/Fad programs
  • Water pills and Laxatives
  • Over-excessive Steam Room/Sauna
  • Over-excessive Exercise
  • Certain kinds of Cosmetic Surgery
I've come to the conclusion that when it comes to weight loss there are no exceptions to the rule. The rule is to eat right, exercise, portion control and moderation. Unfortunately, I've learned my lessons the hard way...more than once, but no more I say! I use to think there were exceptions to the rules of losing weight; and it got me back to where I was and then some. Not proud of it, but I learned from it, and I hope to educate others about the dangers of the exceptions because of the unhealthy consequences that happen from our weight loss choices.

Lesson Learned: Work smarter not harder is what someone told me once; and I plan to apply this to my weight loss goals but I will have to work hard to get to them. It's not how I get there, but the journey that I embark on when I finally do get there!