Just what I needed

Barb at Food = Health is starting a challenge for September. The prize is a Vitamix, which I don't need, but this is definitely good motivation for me. We're to send her our goals and post our progress as we go. I'll be posting my progress here and my goal is to eat only ETL foods. I want to get the sugar and refined flour out of my system for good. Veteran ETL'ers say that the longer you stay away from SAD, the better your SAD cravings diminish. I want these cravings gone for good.

Bad habits be gone

After a couple of false starts, I am ready to take 2011 on.

#1 "resolution": STOP BINGEING

I don't care about anything else. Well, I do, but that's definitely #1. I'm so sick of spending all this time and energy loathing myself, feeling guilty, abusing my body, and putting The Evil Trinity (sugar, fat, and salt) before health. I want to be a "normal" person again and eat normally. Losing a few pounds and making myself disease proof are just the welcome side effects.

Like any goal, I need to break it down and take smaller steps to get there. I'm going to start tracking the days I stay binge-free (goal is to make it to 1 week first) and make smaller weekly goals.

First set of weekly goals:

• Read reasons why I'm Eating-to-Live daily.
• Plan out meals for the following day
• Limit dinner time to 1 hour. Obviously the time can be shorter than that, but no more eating after 1 hour is up
• After dinner, clean up kitchen and immediately brush + floss until any other "wind down" activities begin.

These are aimed toward my tendency to overeat in the evenings. I'll report back next week.

Upping the Goal

I forgot to report my DirectLife status for the week. Because the DL website asked me whether I wanted to increase my goal since I was consistently meeting it every week, I said, surrrrrrrre, why not? Now my ultimate goal is 1273+ cals/day, which according to my coach, would put me at a level 6. That seems awfully high but why not aim big? I figure I am burning on average 700-800 cals/day in exercise (sometimes way less, sometimes a lot more though) which would mean I would have to work for the additional calories burned.

This was the first week that I had the higher goal (1108 cal) and also the first week I didn't meet it. I got to 99% this week and was just shy of it. Boo. I hate not meeting goals! So obviously I will try harder this week. :)

I have a feature on my workout watch that lets you set an event timer (counts down to a specific date). Since IM is really my goal, I put it in a few months ago. I just looked at it yesterday and it said: 75. 75 days until Ironman! That kind of freaked me out. I am not feeling any more ready, mostly because the big volume increases haven't started yet.

Also, I am definitely NOT where I want to be weight-wise for this race. I really need to lean down for this and losing these last 10 lbs would help SO much. It irritates me to no end that I've been trying to do this for so long. I just want this to be done and over with so I can stop obsessing and feeling bad about my weight. It's time to get serious and just DO IT. I "do it" with everything else -- especially exercise -- I can't see why this should be any different!

I picked up some batteries for my scale so I'll finally know the damage (or not?) when I weigh in. That's right - time to weigh in, stick to the plan, and finish this.

Try, try, again...

I lost/gained nothing in the month of April, even though I didn't plan it that way. I know why and fully accept responsibility. I hate that I am stuck in neutral but it's my own fault. I joined in again on the forums at drfuhrman.com for another month to lose 10 lbs. It won't be 10 for me but I'd be happy with half of that. These are the things I'm going to do:

• Post food logs daily. I might not get to it at the end of the night but will definitely update the next day. I will be accountable.
• Participate more in the online support groups. I read and lurk a lot but I'd probably do better as an active participant.
• Have a daily plan. I generally know what works for me and do well for breakfast and lunch but after work, all bets are off. I am going to make more of an effort to know what "the plan" is for dinner and stick to it.
• NO eating at the computer anymore. I keep fooling myself and saying it's okay to eat when it's healthy food, but I still mindlessly eat, which leads to overeating.

It's just 30 days. Who can't do these things for 30 days?

April 1

It's a new month and I've joined in a thread at the forums at drfuhrman.com to lose "10# by May 1" - although for me, my goal is just 5. Since I don't have as much weight to lose, I don't think it's possible for me to lose 10 that quickly. I'm excited and hoping the accountability and support will really help.

Although I've made a lot of good changes, I still don't feel that I'm there yet. The truth is that I STILL haven't conquered this bingeing problem and have bouts of huge sugar and salt intake. I know that it's mostly a habit for me and that this is the way I've learned to "de-stress" and cope when I'm dealing with hard emotions. Why do I still do it? Good question. I'm still figuring that part out. I think I haven't figured out a better substitute. So part of what I am going to try now are breaking the habit and replacing it with something else.

I weigh in "officially" on Monday.

What I've been up to

It's been crunch time at work and between that, night classes, and training for Oceanside, blogging took less of a priority. The good news is I had a pretty good race on Saturday! For once, I didn't have any real nutrition issues. I cut my bike time by 8 minutes and my run time by about 12 minutes (I walked a lot last year) and cut my overall time by almost 18 minutes!! I'm glad I shaved off time, but what matters the most is that I felt good and felt I was finally putting my training to use! Hurray!

And the big news is...

I signed up for my very first Ironman!

I am really excited but also nervous!

I've never run more than 13.1 miles in my life and now I'm going to run a marathon? AFTER having biked for 6+ hours? Hmmmm...

I feel really good lately and I'm sure nutrition is playing some part in that.

6 Weeks Completed

I officially ended my 6-weeks of ETL today, though I can't say I was as strict as I wanted to be. I would say adherence was a mere 75% and that's being generous. I really want to be closer to 95%!!

The calorie-counting experiment has been interesting. I screwed up a bit the first week (binged) but this past week, I was very good at inputting everything into the counter. Plus I weighed myself everyday. I feel like it helps because I am more accountable, having to enter every little thing in. I suppose that's the point of a food log right? :)

Anyway, I must be reporting something wrong - either I am burning more calories than I realize or not eating as much, because I have the program set to lose 2 lbs/week and according to the software I was "over" my calorie budget by 1257 calories last week (yes, I binged 2x last week)... and, I lost 3 lbs last week!!! Sooo, yeah, something is off.

I am FINALLY under 120 again (I'm 119 this morning). This means I lost a whole 5 lbs during the 6 weeks of ETL. Not much, but I also don't have much to lose and I did make plenty of mistakes.

So what now? I never want to be over 120 again. I'm going to keep using the program and counting calories because it seems to be working right now... I'm going to keep plugging away and trying to get my ETL-adherence closer to 100%. I'm going to get closer to my Fuhrman weight goal... AND - I want to stop bingeing once and for all!

Thinking about 2010

I've been thinking a lot about 2010 goals. Yes, I know we're already into the new year, but I've never been one to make resolutions specific to January 1st. I think it's important to set goals all the time. My top priority is to give up this bingeing habit. Yep, I'm calling it a habit because that's all it is... something I've conditioned myself to do when I want to procrastinate or feel bad about something. People don't do things without reason... obviously I binge because there is some positive outcome for me. If I can find a way to get that same positive effect that comes from bingeing WITHOUT doing it, I can conquer this problem.

This week's goals: (1) weigh-in, (2) no eating in front of the computer (still working on this one!), obviously (3) no bingeing!, (4) 100% vegan the entire week.

Weekly Goals: Nov 9 - Nov 15

I have to do everything in baby steps. It's the only way I won't get overwhelmed and the only way to stay focused. The main problem I need to address is the bingeing. Sure, I could blame emotions, stress, triggers, people, but in the end it's my choice to do it. Food has no power over me. Logically, I think I understand the problem now. I only do it at home -- alone -- and nowadays, it is always in front of the computer. It's my "wind down" time. I just veg out and internet surf. It's like mindless eating in front of a TV, except I do it in front of the computer. I cringe writing that.

It's just a BAD HABIT.

And any habit can be broken. I need to train my brain to do something else instead to wind down. I've thought of a few steps I can take in the right direction so here's what I'll focus on this week:

• NO eating in front of the computer. That's it. It's a rule that I can't break.


• Brush and floss my teeth right after dinner. I won't eat more because I'm too lazy to brush and floss again!


• Read my ARC after dinner and anytime I'm tempted to binge.


• Look at the list of things I could do instead of eating.