Journey Updates
The Fourth Great Attempt: Week 13
April 10, 2010 @ 12:09 pm
Well this was a bipolar kind of week. I knew I had to finally weigh-in after going a long time avoiding the scale. I was feeling kind of good about it; I'd been working out hard, even extra hard on Tuesday before my weigh-in, and I felt surely that had been making up for nutritional indiscretions over the previous weeks. But clearly I'd wandered way off the ranch. Perhaps if I'd weighed in sooner, even if it was bad news, I would have readjusted my course. Instead what I thought would be an "okay" result was utterly demoralizing.It's like stepping into a really bright room. At first I was blinded by the reality that my weight had ballooned again in spite of my gym efforts, and in spite of feeling good. Then as my eyes and brain adjusted I saw more clearly just how felonious I've been in the last few weeks.
- Eating whole pints of ice cream
- Cooking a lot more pasta than two of us need and going back for seconds.
- Cheese, glorious cheese. And lots of it
- Routinely 1/2 to 3/4 bottle of wine a day
- Snacking, snacking, snacking ... heavily between dinner and bedtime. Snack packs, cheese, cookies, peanut butter, anything especially refined breads and processed foods.
- Not drinking nearly enough water. Eating too little during the day so I binge at night.
- Not taking my vitamins and supplements, not eating enough real foods like veggies, flax, or nuts.
Well that stopped on Wednesday. I've started analyzing more closely what I'm eating to understand better what's going into my body. I'm reeducating my brain on what proper nutrition feels like. I'm hungry at times, but I have fruit, nuts or veggies. I drink a lot of water ... I pee every 10 minutes (well it feels like that). I've calculated my basal metabolic rate, the number of calories I need to eat and burn each week. Over the last three days I've not eaten a lot of calories, actually, about 1300 - 1600 total not including exercise (which reduces net calories), and it's been fine. I've been satiated.
And most importantly I stopped eating after dinner. There were times after dinner where I would think "I'm peckish" but then I realized, no, I wasn't, and I didn't need to eat. I drank water, I had a glass of wine, and maybe a bite of ice cream if I was getting some for The Beau but otherwise, I've cut out eating so late at night. And by the by, my dreams haven't been as crazy either as a result.
So progress this week? I've done well over the last month of kicking my ass into the gym but eating has again been my Achilles' heal. That's changing again and I'm now focusing on training my mind as much as I have been training my body.